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HUMOURISTS 



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/I 



THE ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

OF THE 

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



SWIFT. 

In treating of the English humorists of the past age, it is 
of the men and of their lives, rather than of their books, that 
I ask permission to speak to you ; and in doing so, you are 
aware that I cannot hope to entertain you with a merely humor- 
ous or facetious story. Harlequin without his mask is known 
to present a very sober countenance, and was himself, the story 
goes, the melancholy patient whom the Doctor advised to go 
and see Harlequin* — a man full of cares and perplexities like 
the rest of us, whose Self must always be serious to him, under 
whatever mask or disguise or uniform he presents it to the 
public. And as all of you here must needs be grave when you 
think of your own past and present, you will not look to find, 
in the histories of those whose lives and feelings I am going to 
try and describe to you, a story that is otherwise than serious, 
and often very sad. If Humor only meant laughter, you would 
scarcely feel more interest about humorous writers than about 
the private life of poor Harlequin just mentioned, who pos- 
sesses in common with these the power of making you laugh. 
But the men regarding whose lives and stories your kind pres- 
ence here shows that you have curiosity and sympathy, appeal 
to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere 
sense of ridicule. The humorous writer professes to awaken 
and direct your love, your pity, your kindness — your scorn for 

* The anecdote is frequently told of our performer Rich. 

(371) 



^^2 EA'GLIsn HUM ORIS TS. 

untruth, pretension, imposture — your tenderness for the weak, 
the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his 
means and abihty he comments on al! the ordinarv' actions and 
passions of Hfe ahnost. He takes upon himself to be the week- 
day preacher, so to speak. Accordingly, as he finds, and 
speaks, and feels the truth best, we regard him, esteem him— 
sometimes love him. And, as his business is to mark other 
people's lives and peculiarities, we moralize upon///> life when 
he is gone — and yesterday's preacher becomes the text for to- 
day's sermon. 

Of English parents, and of a good English family of clergy 
men,* Swift was born in Dublin in 1667, seven months after 
the death of his father, who had come to practise there as a 
lawyer. The boy went to school at Kilkenny, and afterwards 
to Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a degree with diffi- 
culty, and was wild, and witty, and poor. In 1688, by the 
recommendation of his mother, Swift was received into the 
family of Sir William Temple,- who had known Mrs. Swift in 
Ireland. He left his patron in 1694, and the next year took 
orders in Dublin. But he threw up the small Irish preferment 
which he got and returned to 1 emple, in whose family he re- 
mained until Sir William's death in 1699. His hopes of 
advancement in England failing, Swift returned to Ireland, and 
took the living of Laracor. Hither he invited Hester John- 
son,! Temple's natural daughter, with whom he had contracted 
a tender friendship, while they were both dependants of 
Temple's. And with an occasional visit to England. Swift now 
passed nine years at home. 

* He was from a younger brancli of the Swifts of Yorkshire. His grandfather, 
the Rev. Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich, in Hercfordsliirc, suffered for his loyalty 
m Charles I.'s time. That gentleman married Elizabetii Dryden, a member of the 
family of the poet. Sir Walter ■ Scott gives, with his characteristic minuteness in 
such points, the exact relationship between these famous men. Swift was ''the son 
of Dryden's second cousin.'' Swifl, too, was the enemy of Dryden's reputation. 
Witness the " Battle of the Books : " — " The difference was greatest among the 
horse," says he of the moderns, " where every private trooper pretended to the com- 
mand, from Tasso and Milton to Dryden and Withers." And in " Poetry, a Rhap 
sody '' he advises the poetaster to — 

" Read all the Prefaces of Dryden, 
For these our critics much confide in, 
Though merely writ, at first for filling, 
To raise the volume' .s price a shilling." 

" Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet,'"' was the phrase of Dryden to his kins- 
man, which remamed alive in a memory tenacious of such matters. 

t " Miss Hetty" she was called in the family — where her face, and her dress, and 
Sir William's treatment of her, all made the real fact about her birth plain enough. 
Sir William left her a thousand pounds. 



SWIFT. 3„ 

In 1709 he came to England, and, with a brief visit to Ire- 
land, during which he took possession of his deanery of St. 
Patrick's, he now passed nve years in I^ngland, taking the most 
distinguished part in the political transactions which terminated 
with the death of Queen Anne. After her death, his party 
disgraced, and his hopes of ambition over. Swift returned to- 
Dublin, where he remained twelve years. In this time he vrrote 
the famous '• Drapicr's Letters '' and " Gulliver's Travels."' He 
married Hester Johnson, Stella, and buried Esther Vanhom- 
righ, Vanessa, vvho had followed him to Ireland from London, 
w^here she had contracted a violent passion for him. In 1726 
and 1727 Sv^^ift was in England, w^hich he quitted for the last 
time on hearing of his wife's illness. Stella died in January, 
1728, and Swift not until 1745--, having passed the last five of 
the seventy-eight years of his life v/ith an impaired intellect 
and keepers to watch him.* 

You know, of course, that Swift has had many biographers ; 
his life has been told by the kindest and most good-natured of 
men. Scott, who admires but can't bring himself to love him ; 
and by stout old Johnson,! who, forced to admit him into the 
company of poets, receives the famous Irishman, and takes off 
his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, scans him from 
head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the street. 

* Soraelimes, during his mental affliction, he continued walking about the house 
for many consecutive hours ; sometimes he remained in a kind of torpor. At times, 
he would seem to struggle to bring into district consciousness, and shape into ex- 
pression, the intellect that lay smothering under gloomy obstruction in him. A pier- 
glass falling by accident, nearly fell on him. He said he wished it had! He once 
repeated slowly several times, " J am what I am.'' The last thing he wrote was an 
epigram on the building of a magazine for arms and stores, which was pointed out to 
liim as he went abroad during his mental disease :— 

" Behold a proof of Irish sense : 
tlere Irish wit is seen : 
When nothing's left that's worth defence, 
They build a magazine ! " 

t Besides these famous books of Scott's and Johnson's, there is a copious "Life" 
by Thomas Sheridan (Dr. Johnson's " Sherry " ), father of Richard Brinsley, and 
son of that good-natured, clever Irish Dr. Thomas Sheridan. Swift's intimate, who 
lost his chaplamcy by so unluckily choosing fer a text on the King's birthday, '■ Suffi- 
sient for the day is the evil "thereof 1 " Not to mention less important works, there is 
also the " Remarks on tlie Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift." by that polite 
and dignified writer, the Earl of Orrery. His lordship is said to have striven for 
literary renown, chiefly that he might make up for the slight passed on him by his 
fatlier, who left his library away from him. It is to be feared that tlie ink he used 
to wa'-h out that stain only made it look bigger. He had, however, known Swift, and 
corresponded with people'who knew him/ His work (which appeared in 175 1) pro- 
voked a good deal of controversy, railing out, among other brochures, the interesting 
•' Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks," &c., of Dr. Delany. 



274 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

Dr. Wilde of Dublin,* who has written a most interesting vol- 
ume on the closing years of Swift's life, calls Johnson "the 
most malignant of his biographers : " it is not easy for an Eng- 
lish critic to please Irishmen — perhaps to try and please them. 
And yet Johnson truly admires Swift : Johnson does not quar- 
, rel with Swift's change of politics, or doubt his sincerity of 
religion : about the famous Stella and Vanessa controversy the 
Doctor does not bear very hardly on Swift. But he could not 
give the Dean that honest hand of his ; the stout old man puts 
it into his breast, and moves off from him.f 

Would we have liked to live with him ? That is a question 
which, in dealing with these people's works, and thinking of 
their lives and pe(5uliarities, every reader of biographies must 
put to himself. Would you have liked to be a friend of the 
great Dean ? I should like to have been Shakspeare's shoe- 
black — just to have lived in his house, just to have worshipped 
him — to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet serene 
face. I should like, as a young man, to have lived on Field- 
ing's staircase in the Temple, and after helping him up to bed 
perhaps, and opening his door with his latch-key, to have 
shaken hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk and 
crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. Wlio 
would not give something to pass a night at the club with John- 
son, and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck ? 
The charm of Addison's companionship and conversation has 
passed to us by fond tradition — but Swift ? If you had been 
his inferior in parts (and that, with a great respect for all per- 
sons present, I fear is only very likely), his equal in mere social 
station, he would have bullied, scorned and insulted you ; if, 
undeterred by his great reputation, you had met him like a 
man, he would have quailed before you,| and not had the pluck 

* Dr. Wilde's book was written on the occasion of the remains of Swift and Stella 
being brought to the light of day — a thing which happened in 1S35, when certain 
works going on in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, afforded an opportunity of their 
being examined. One hears with surprise of these skulls " going the rounds '' of 
houses, and being made the objects of dilettante curiosity. The larynx of Swift was 
actually carried off ! Phrenologists had a low opinion of his intellect from the ob- 
servations they took. 

Dr. Wilde traces the symptoms of ill-health in Swift, as detailed in his writings 
from time to time. He observes, likewise, that the skull gave evidence of " diseased 
action " of the brain dunng life — such as would be produced by an increasing tendency 
to " cerebral congestion." 

t " He [Dr. Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against 
Swift ; for I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had personally offended him. 
and he told me he had not." — Bosw^ell's Tour to the Hebrides. 

\ Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their success was encourag- 
ing. One gentleman made a point of asking the Dean whether his uncle Godwin 
had not given him his education. Swift, who "hated that subject cordially, and, in* 



SWIFT. 37S 

to reply, and gone home, and years after written a foul epigram 
about you — watched for you in a sewer, and come out to assail 
you with a coward's blow and a dirty bludgeon. If you had 
been a lord with a blue ribbon, who flattered his vanity, or 
could help his ambition, he would have been the most delight- 
ful company in the world. He would have been so manly, so 
sarcastic, so bright, odd, and original, that you might think he 
had no object in view but the indulgence of his humor, and 
that he was the most reckless, simple creature in the world. 
How he would have torn your enemies to pieces for you ! and 
made fun of the Opposition ! His servility was so boisterous 
that it looked like independence ; * he would have done your 
errands, but with the air of patronizing you, and after fighting 
your battles, masked, in the street or the press, would have 
kept on his hat before your wife and daughters in the drawing- 
room, content to take that sort of pay for his tremendous ser- 
vices as a bravo, t 

deed, cared little for his kindred, said, sternly, " Yes ; he gave me the education of a 
dog.'' " Then, sir," cried the other, striking his fist on the table, " you have not the 
gratitude of a dog ! '' 

Other occasions tliere were when a bold face gave the Dean pause, even after his 
Irish almost-royal position was established. But he brought himself into greater 
danger on a certain occasion, and the amusing circumstances may be once more re- 
peated here. He had unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, Mr. Serjeant 
Bettesworth — 

" Thus at the bar, the booby Bettesworth, 

Though half-a-crown o'er-pays his sweat's worth, 
Who knows in law nor text nor margent, 
Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant ! " 

The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented himself at the 
deanery. The Dean asked his name. " Sir, I am Serjeant Bett-es-worth.'' 

"/« what regiment, pray '' '' asked Swift. 

A guai-d of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at this time. 

* '* But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my sentiments from you. 
I am much inclined to believe that the temper of my friend Swift might occasion his 
English friends to wish him happily and properly promoted at a distance. His spirit, 
for I would give it the softest name, was everuntractable. The motions of his genius 
were often irregular. He assumed more the air of a patron than of a friend. He 
affected rather to dictate than advise." — Orrery. 

-|- <•-**** p^YL anecd;)te, which, though only told by Mrs. Pilkington, is well at- 
tested, bears, that the last time he was in London he went to dine with the Earl of 
Burlington, who was but newly married. The Earl, it is supposed, being willing to 
have a little diversion, did not introduce him to his lady nor mention his name. 
After dinner said the Dean, ' Lady Burlington, I hear you can sing ; sing me a song.' 
The lady looked on this unceremonious manner of asking a favor with distaste, and 
positively refused. He said, * She should sing, or he would make her. Why, madam, 
I suppose you take me for one of your poor English hedge-parsons ; sing when I bid 
you,' As the Earl did nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed that 
she burst into tears and retired. His first compliment to her when he saw her again 
was, ' Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you last ? ' 
To which she answered with great good-humor, ' No, Mr. Dean ; I'll sing for you if 



376 ENGL ISH HI r MORIS TS. 

lie says as much himself in one of his letters to Boling- 
broke : — " All my efforts to distinguish myself were only for 
\yant of a great title and fortune, that I might be used like a 
lord by those who have an opinion of my parts ; whether right 
or wrong is no great matter. And so the reputation of wit and 
great learning does the office of a blue ribbon or a coach and 
six."* 

Could there be a greater candor ? It is an outlaw, who says, 
" These are my brains ; with these I'll win titles and compete 
with fortune. These are my bullets ; these I'll turn into gold ;" 
and he hears the sound of coaches and six, takes the road like 
Macheatb, and makes society stand and deliver. They are all 
on their knees before him. Down go my lord bishop's apron, 
and his Grace's blue ribbon, and my lady's brocade petticoat in 
the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a patent 
place, the third of a little snug post about the Court, and gives 
them over to followers of his own. The great prize has not come 
yet. The coach with the mitre and crozier in it, which he in^ 
tends to have for his share, has been delayed on the way from 
St. James's ; and he waits and waits until nightfall, when his 
runners come and tell him that the coach has taken a differ- 
ent road, and escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air 
with a curse, and rides away into his own country.f 

you please.' From which time he conceived a great esteem for her." — Scott's Life. 
« * * « * Hg \-^^^ j^ot the least tincture of vanity in his conversation. He was, 
perhaps, as he said himself, too proud to be vain. When lie was polite, it was in 2 
manner entirely his own. In his friendships he was constant and undisguised. He 
was the same in his enmities." — Orrery. 

* " I make no figure but at court, where I affect to turn from a lord to the meanest 
of my acquaintances." — Journalto Stella. 

" I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me their books and 
poems, the vilest I ever saw ; but I have given their names to my man, never to let 
them see me." — Journal to Stella. 

The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier : — 

" Did I ever tell you that the Lord Treasurer hears ill with the left ear, just as 1 
do ? * * * *- I dare not tell him that I am so, for fear he should thmk that 1 
eounterfeitcdto make my court /" — Journal to Stella. 

t The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and the other : 
and the Whig attacks made the Ministry Swift served very sore. Bohngbroke laid 
hold of several of the Opposition pamphleteers, and bewails their " factitiousness '' 
in the following letter : — 

" BOLIXGBROKE TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. 

" iVhitehall, July22,d, 171 2. 
'' It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country are too weak to 
punisli effectually those factitious scribblers, who presume to blacken the brightest 
characters, and to give even scurrilous language to tliose who are in the first degrees 
of honor. This, my lord, among others, is a symptom of the decayed condition of 
our Government, and serves to show how fatally we mistake licentiousness for lil> 
erty. Ali I could do was to take up Hart, the printer, to send him to Newgate, and 



SWIFT. 3„ 

Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point a moral 
or adorn a tale of ambition, as any hero's that ever lived and 
failed. But we must remember that the morality was lax — that 
other gentlemen besides himself took the road in his day — that 
public society was in a strange disordered condition, and the 
State was ravaged by other condottieri. The Boyne was being 
fought and won, and lost — the bells rung in William's victory 
in the very same tone with which they would have pealed for 
James's. Men were loose upon politics, and had to shift for 

to bind !iim over upon bail to be prosecuted ; this I have done ; and if I can arrive at 
legal proof against the author, Ridpath, he sliall have the same treatment." 

Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous indignation. In the 
history of the four last years of the Queen, the Dean speaks in the most edifying 
manner of the licentiousness of the press and the abusive language of the other 
party : — 

" It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers have been such as to 
deserve the severest animadversion from the public. * * * * The adverse party, 
full of rage and leisure since their fall, and unanimous in their cause, employ a set of 
writers by subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation, and have 
a style and genius levelled to the generality of their readers. * * * * However, 
the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant to be cured by such a remedy as a tax 
ujaon small papers, and a bill for a much more effectual regulation of it was brought 
into the House of Commons, but so late in the session that there was no time to pass 
it, for there always appeared an unwillingness to cramp overmuch the liberty of the 
press." 

But to a clause in the proposed bill, that the names of authors should be set to 
every pi-lnted book, pamphlet or paper, his Reverence objects altogether ; for, says 
he, "besides the objection to this clause from the practice of pious men, who, in pub- 
lishing excellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, ottf of an hnniblc 
Christian spirit, to conceal their names, it is certain that all persons of true genius 
or knowledge have an invincible modesty and suspicion of themselves upon first send- 
mg their thouglits into the world." 

This " invincible modesty '' was no doubt the sole reason which induced the 
Dean to keep the secret of the " Drapier's Letters'' and a hundred humble Christian 
works of which he was the author. As for the Opposition, the Doctor was for 
dealing severely with them : he writes to Stella: 

Journal, Letter XIX. 

"■London^ March 2i,th, 1710-11. 

" * * * * We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him 
pickled in a trough this fortnight for twopence a piece ; and the fellow that shovs'ed 
would point to his body and say, ' See, gentlemen, this is the wound that was given 
him by his Grace the Duke of Ormond ; ' and, ' This is the wound,' &c. ; and then 
the show was over, and another set of rabble came in. 'Tis hard that our laws 
Avould not suffer us to hang his body in chains, because he was not tried; and in 
th^ eye of the law every man is innocent till then. * * * * " 

Journal, Letter XXVII. 

" London, July s^th, 171 1. 

" I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped to hinder a 
man of his pardon, who is condemned for a rape. The under Secretary was willing 
to save him ; but I told the Secretary he could not pardon him without a favorable 
report from the Judge ; besides, he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and 
deserved hanjing for something else, and so he shall swing." 



278 ENGLISH II CM OK IS TS. 

themselves. They, as well as old beliefs and institutions, had 
lost their moorings and gone adrift in the storm. As in the 
South Sea Bubble, almost everybody gambled ; as in the Rail- 
way mania — not many centuries ago — almost every one took 
his unlucky share : a man of that time, of the vast talents 
and ambition of Swift, could scarce do otherwise than grasp at 
his prize, and make his spring at his opportunity. His bitter- 
ness, his scorn, his rage, his subsequent misanthropy, are as- 
cribed by some panegyrists to a deliberate conviction of man- 
kind's unworthiness, and a desire to amend them by castigating. 
His youth was bitter, as that of a great genius bound down by 
ignolDie ties, and powerless in a mean dependence ; his age was 
bitter,* like that of a great genius that had fought the battle 
and nearly won it, and lost it, and thought of it afterwards 
writhing in a lonely exile. A man may attribute to the gods, 
if he likes, what is caused by his own fury, or disappointment, 
or self-will. What public man — what statesman projecting a 
coup — what king determined on an invasion of his neighbor — 
what satirist meditating an onslaught on society or an individ- 
ual, can't give a pretext for his move ? There was a French 
general the other day who proposed to march into this country 
and put it to sack and pillage, in revenge for humanity out- 
raged by our conduct at Copenhagen : there is always some 
excuse for men of the aggressive turn. They are of their na- 
ture warlike, predatory, eager for fight, plunder, dominion. f 

As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck — as strong a wing 
as ever beat, belonged to Swift. I am glad, for one, that fate 
wrested the prey out of his claws, and cut his wings and 
chained him. One can gaze, and not without awe and pity, at 
the lonely eagle chained behind the bars. 

That Swift was born at No. 7 Hoey's Court, Dublin, on 
the 30th November, 1667, is a certain fact, of which nobody 
will deny the sister island the honor and glory ; but, it seems 
to me, he was no more an Irishman than a man born of Eng- 
lish parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo. t Goldsmith was an 

* It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day of mourning. 

t " These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the Flyinq- Post and Medley 
in one paper, will not be quiet. They are always mauling Lord Treasurer, Lord 
Bolingbroke, and me. We have the dog under prosecution, i>ut Bolingbroke is not 
active enough ; but I hope to swing him. He is a Scotch rogue, one Ridpath. 
They get out upon bail, and write on. We take them again, and get fresh bail ; so 
it goes xoviw^:' —Journal to Stella. 

\ Swift was by no means inclined to forget such considerations : and his English 
birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, every now and then in his writings. Thus 
in a letter to Pope (Scott's Swift., vol. xix. p. 97), he says : — 

" Wc have had your volume of letters. * * * * Some of those who highlv 



SWIFT. 3„ 

IrishmaTi, and always an Irishman : Steele was an Irishman, 
and always an Irishman : Swift's heart was English and in 
England, his habits English, his logic eminently English ; his 
statement is elaborately simple ; he shuns tropes and meta- 
phors, and uses his ideas and words with a wise thrift and 
economy, as he used his money : with which he could be gen- 
erous and splendid upon great occasions, but which he hus- 
banded when there was no need to spend it. He never 
indulges in needless extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, 
profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before you with a grave 
simplicity and a perfect neatness.* Dreading ridicule too, as 
a man of his humor — above all an Englishman of his humor — 
certainly would, he is afraid to use the poetical power which he 
really possessed ; one often fancies in reading him that he 
dares not be eloquent when he might ; that he does not speak 
above his voice, as it were, and the tone of society. 

value you, and few who knew you personally, are grieved to find you make no dis- 
tinction between the English gentry of this kingdom, and the savage old Irish (who 
are only the vulgar, and some gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the kingdom);' 
but the English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much more civilized than 
many counties in England, and speak better English, and are much better bred." 

And again, in the fourth Drapier's Letter, we have the following : — 

" A sliort paper, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr. Wood to say 
' that he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the Irish in refusing his coin.' 
When, by the way, it is the true English people of Ireland who refuse it, although 
we take it for granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are asked.'' — 
Scott's Swift^ vol. vi. p. 453. 

He goes further, in a good-humored satirical paper, " On Barbarous Denomina- 
tions in Ireland,'' where (after abusing, as he was wont, the Scotch cadence, as well 
as expression.) he advances to the ^^ Irisli brogzie ^'" ^i\d speaking of the "censure" 
which it brings down, says : — 

" And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad consequence of this 
opinion affects those among us wlio are not the least liable to such reproaches farther 
than the misfortune of being born in Ireland, although of English parents, and whose 
education has been chiefly in that kingdom." — Ibid. vol. vii. p. 149. 

But, indeed, if we are to make anything of Race at all, we must call that man an 
Englislmian whose father comes from an old Yorkshire family, and his mother from 
an old Leicestershire one ! 

* " The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with that of his 
writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day at a Sheriff's feast, who 
amongst other toasts called out to him, ' Mr. Dean, The Trade of Ireland ! ' he 
answered quickly : ' Sir, I drink no memories 1 ' * * * * 

" Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who prided himself on 
saying pert things * * * and who cried out — ' You must know, Mr. Dean, that I set 
up for a wit ? ' ' Do you so ? ' says the Dean. ' Take my advice, and sit dowo 
again ! ' 

" At another time, being in company, where a lady whisking her long train [long 
trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine fiddle and broke it ; Swift cried 
out — 

* Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae !' " 

— Dr. Delany : Observations ti/on Lord Orrery's ^^ Remarks. &><:., on Sv^fi" 
London, 1754. 



28o . ENGLFSH HUMORISTS. 

■ * ' ■■ 11 

His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, his, 
knowledge of polite life, his acquaintance with literature even..^ 
which he could not have pursued very sedulousl}^ during tha\, 
reckless career at Dublin, Swift got under the roof of Sir^ 
William Temple. He was fond of telling in after life what, 
quantities of books he devoured there, and how King Williani. 
taught him to cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion. It was at 
Shene and at Moor Park, with a salar}^ of twenty pounds and' 
a dinner at the upper servants' table, that this great and lonely. 
Swift passed a ten years' apprenticeship — wore a cassock that 
was only not a liver\^ — bent down a knee as proud as Lucifer's 
to Supplicate my lady's good graces, or run on his honor'* 
errands.* It was here, as he was writing at Temple's table, or 
following his patron's walk, that he saw and heard the men who 
had governed the great world — measured himself with them, 
looking up from his silent corner, gauged their brains, weighed 
their wits, turned them, and tried them, and marked them. 
Ah ! what platitudes he must have heard ! what feeble jokes ! 
what pompous commonplaces ! what small men they must have 
seemed under those enormous periwigs, to the swarthy, un- 
couth, silent Irish secretary. I wonder whether it ever struck 
Temple, that that Irishman was his master? I suppose that 
dismal conviction did not present itself under the ambrosial 
wig, or Temple could never have lived with Swift. Swift 
sickened, rebelled, left the service — ate humble pie and came 
back again ; and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, 
swallowing scorn, and submitting with a stealthy rage to his 
fortune. 

Temple's style is the perfection of practised and easy good- 
breeding. If he does not penetrate very deeply into a subject, 
he professes a very gentlemanly acquaintance with it ; if he 
makes rather a parade of Latin, it was the custom of his day, 
as it was the custom for a gentleman to envelope his head in a 
periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles and 
square-toed shoes, he steps in them with a consummate grace, 
and you never hear their creak, or find them treading upon any 
lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When 
that grows too hot or too agitated for him, he politely leaves it. 
He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park : and lets the 
King's party and the Prince of Orange's party battle it out 

*"Do)ft you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir Wilham Temple 
would loolc cold and out of humor for three or four days, and I used to suspect a 
hundred reasons ? I have phicked up my spirits since then, faith : he spoiled a tine 
gentleman.-' — J-oumal to Stella. 



SWIFT. 381 

«mong themselves. He reveres the Sovereign (and no man 
perliaps ever testified to his loyalty by so elegant a bow) ; he 
admires the Prince of Orange ; but there is one person whose 
ease and comfort he loves more than all the princes in Chris- 
tendom, and that vakiable member of society is him.self Guliel- 
mus Temple, Baronettus. One sees him in his retreat ; be 
twee^i his study-chair and his tulip-beds,* clipping his apricots 
and pruning Iiis essays, — the statesman, the ambassador no 
more . but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman 
and courtier at St. James's as at Shene ; where in place of kings 
and fair ladies he pays his court to the C'iceronian majesty ; or 
walks a minuet with the Epic Muse ; or dallies by the south 
wall with the ruddy nymph of gardens. 

Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigious 
deal of veneration from his household, and to have been 
coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by the people round about 
him, as delicately as any of the plants which he loved. When 
he fell ill in 1693, the household was aghast at his indisposition ; 
mild Dorothea his wife, the best companion of the best of men — 

" Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, 
Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate.'' 



% u % % * % The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and fortu- 
•nate in their express;ion, when they placed a man's happiness in the tranquillity of 
his mind and indolence of body ; for while we are composed of both, 1 doubt both 
must have a share in the good or ill we feel. As men of several languages say the 
same things in very different words, so in several ages, countries, constitutions of 
laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very different expressions: 
what is called by the Stoics apathy, or dispassion ; by the skeptics, indisturbance ; 
by the Molinists, quietism ; by common men, peace of conscience,— seems all to 
m^an but great tranquillity of mind. * * '^' For this reason, Epicurus passed his 
life wholly in his garden ; there he studied, there he exercised, there he taught his 
philosophy ; and, indeed, no other sort of abode seems to contribute so much to both 
the tranquillity of mind and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The 
sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness 
and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking ; but, above all, the exemp- 
tion from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favor and improve both contemplation 
and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and *:hercby the quiet and ease 
both of the body and mind.* * * Where Paradise was, has been much debated, and 
little agreed ; but wliat sort of place meant by it may perhaps easier be conjectured. 
It seems to have been a Persian word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors 
mention it as what was much in use and delight among the kings of those eastern 
countries. Strabo describing Jericho : ' Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtoe simt etiara 
aliae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio stadiorum centum, totus 
irrigus ; ibi est Regis Balsami paradisus.'' '" — Essay on Gardens. 

In the same famous essay Temple .speaks of a friend, whose conduct and prudence 
he characteristically admires : 

*»*«-** J thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in Stafford- 
shire, who is a great lover of his gardens, to pretend no higher, though his soil be 
good enough, than to the perfection of plums ; and in these (by bestowing south 
walls upon them) he has very well succeeded, which he could never have done in 
at-teqipts upqri peaches and grapes ; 2.\\,Ci <^ good /lum is certainly better than an ill 



382 ENGLISH HUMOR IS TS. 

As for Dorinda, his sister, — 

•' Those who would grief describe, might come and trace 
Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. 
To see her weep, joy every face forsook, 
And grief flung sables on each menial look. 
The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul, 
That furnished spirit and motion through the whole." 

Isn't that Une in which grief is described as putting the menials 
into a mourning livery, a fine image ? One of the menials 
wrote it who did not like that Temple livery nor those twenty- 
pound wages. Cannot one fancy the uncouth young servitor, 
with downcast eyes, books and papers in hand, following at his 
honor's heels in the garden walk ; or taking his honors orders 
as he stands by the great chair, where Sir William has the 
gout, and his feet all blistered with moxa ? When Sir William 
has the gout or scolds it must be hard work at the second 
table ; * the Irish secretary owned as much afterwards : and 
when he came to dinner, how he must have lashed and growled 
and torn the household with his gibes and scorn ! What would 
the steward say about the pride of them Irish schollards — and 
this one had got no great credit even at his Irish college, if 
the truth were known — and what a contempt his Excellency's 

* Swift's Thoughts on Hanging. 

{Directions to Servants.) 

" To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all indignities ; therefore, 
when you find years coming on without hopes of a place at court, a command in the 
army, a succession to the stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two last 
you cannot obtain without reading and writing), or running away with your master': 
niece or daughter, 1 directly advise you to go upon the road, which is the only post of 
honor left you ; there you will meet many of your old comrades, and live a short life 
and a merry one, and make a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some in- 
structions. 

" Th3 last advice I give you relates to your behavior when you are going to be 
hanged : which, either for robbing your master, for housebreaking, or going upon the 
highway, or in a drunken quarrel by killing the first man you meet, may very probably 
be your lot, and is owing to one of these three qualities : either a love of good fellow- 
ship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of spirits. Your good behavior on 
this article will concern your whole community : deny the fact with all solemnity of 
imprecations : a hundred of your brethren, if they can be admitted, will attend about 
tho bar, and be ready upon demand to give you a character before the Court ; let noth- 
ing prevail on you to confess, but the promise of a pardon for discovering your com- 
rades ; but I suppose all this to be in vain ; for if you escape now, your fate will be 
*.he same another day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate ; 
some of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt and white cap, 
crowned with a crimson or black ribbon : take leave cheerfully of all your friends in 
Newgate : mount the cart with courage ; fall on your knees ; lift up your eyes ; hold 
a book in your hands, although you cannot read a word ; deny the fact at the gallows ! 
kiss and forgive the hangman, and so farewell ; you shall be buried in pomp at the 
charge of the fraternity: the surgeon shall not touch a limb of you; and your fame 
shall continue until a successor of equal renown succeeds in your place. * * *'' 



SWIFT. 



383 



own gentleman must have had for Parson Teague from DubUn. 
(The valets and chaplains were always at war. It is hard to 
say which Swift thought the more contemptible). And what 
must have been the sadness, the sadness and terror, of the 
housekeeper's little daughter with the curling black ringlets 
and the sweet smiling face, when the secretary who teaches 
her to read and write, and whom she loves and reverences 
above all things — above mother, above mild Dorothea, above 
that tremendous Sir William in his square-toes and periwig, — 
when Mr. Sivift comes down from his master with rage in his 
heart, and has not a kind word even for little Hester Johnson ? 

Perhaps, for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's condescen- 
sion was even more cruel than his frowns. Sir William would 
perpetually quote Latin and the ancient classics a propos of his 
gardens and his Dutch statues 2iud plates-ba?ides, and talk about 
Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, Julius Caesar, Semiramis, and 
the gardens of the Hesperides, Maecenas, Strabo describing 
Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. Apropos of beans, he would 
mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and that 
this precept probably meant that wise men should abstain from 
public affairs. He is a placid Epicurean ; he is a Pythagorean 
philosopher ; he is a wise man — that is the deduction. Does 
not Swift think so ? One can imagine the downcast eyes lifted 
up for a moment, and the flash of scorn which they emit. 
Swift's eyes were as azure as the heavens ; Pope says nobly (as 
everything Pope said and thought of his friend was good and 
noble), '' His eyes are as azure as the heavens, and have a 
charming archness in them." And one person in that house- 
hold, that pompous, stately, kindly Moor Park, saw heaven no- 
where else. 

But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree 
with Swift. He was half-killed with a surfeit of Shene pippins ; 
and in a garden-seat which he devised for himself at Moor 
Park, and where he devoured greedily the stock of books 
within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness which pun- 
ished and tormented him through life. He could not bear the 
place or the servitude. Even in that poem of courtly condo- 
lence, from which we have quoted a few lines of mock melan- 
choly, he breaks out of the funereal procession with a mad 
shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying his own grief, cursing 
his own fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune, 
and even hope. 

I don't know anything more melancholy than the letter to 
Temple, in which, after having broke from his bondage, the poor 



3^4 



EAGLISH II U MORIS TS. 



wretch crouches piteously towards his cage again, and deprecates 
his master's anger. He asks for testimonials for orders. " The 
particulars required of me are what relate to morals and learn- 
ing; and the reasons of quitting your honor's family — ^that is,,| 
whether the last was occasioned by any ill action. They are- 
left entirely to your honor's mercy, though in the first I think 1 
cannot reproach myself for anything further than for inf(7'initics. 
This is all I dare at present beg from your honor, under cir- 
cumstances of life not worth your regard : what is left me to 
wish (next to the health and prosperity of your honor and 
family) is that Heaven would one day allow me the opportu- 
nity of leaving my acknowledgments at your feet. I beg niy 
most humble duty and service be presented to my ladies, your 
honor's lady and sister." — Can prostration fall deeper ? could 
a slave bow lower ? * 

Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet, describing the 
same man, says, '' Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house and 
had a bow from everybody but me. When I came to the ante- 
chamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the 
principal man of talk and business. He was soliciting the 
Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, 
to fret a place for a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold 
to undertake, with my Lord Treasurer, that he should obtain a 
salary of '200/. per annum as member of the English Church 
at. Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going into the 

* *• He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of that great juan." 
— Anecdotes of the Family of Siv^ft, hy the Dean. 

" It has since pleased God to take this great and good person to himself." — Pre- 
face to Temple's Works. 

On all public occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same tone. But the 
reader will better understand how acutely he remembered the indignities he suffered 
in his household, from the subjoined extracts from \\\& Journal to Stella: — 

*• I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d ailed him on Sun- 
day : I made him a very proper speech ; told him I observed he was much out of 
temper, that I did not expect he would tell me the cause, but would be glad to see he 
Avr.s in better ; and one thing I warned him of — ^never to appear cold to me, for I would 
not b- treated like a schoolboy ; that I had felt too much of that in my life already '' 
{vica ing Sir William Temple), &c., &c. — Journal to Stella. 

'■ \ ;i!n thinking wliat a veneration we used to have for Sir William Temple be- 
cause he might have been .Secretary of State at fifty ; and here is a young fellow hardly 
thirty in th'at employment."— /<^zV/. 

•• The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often thought 
what a splutter Sir Wiliiam Temple makes about being Secretary of State." — Ibid. 

*' Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now quite well. I 
was playing at one-and-thirty with him and his family the other night. He gave us 
all twelvepenre apiece to begin with; it put me in mind of Sir William Temple." 
—Ibid. 

" I thought I saw Jack Temple [tiephexv to Sir William] and his wife pass by 
me to-dav in their coach ; but I took no notice of them. I am glad 1 have wliolly 
shaken oft that f?mily." — .S'. to S. Sept., 1710. 



SIVIT-T. 



385 



Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had something 
to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his gold 
watch, and telling the time of day, complained that it was very 
late. A gentleman said he was too fast. ' How can I help it,' 
says the Doctor, ' if the courtiers give me a watch that won't 
go right ? ' Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the 
best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun 
a translation of Homer into English, for which he would have 
them all subscribe : ' For,' says he, ' he shall not begin to print 
till I have a thousand guineas for him.' * Lord Treasurer, 
after leaving the Queen, came through the room, beckoning 
Dr. Swift to follow him, — both went off just before prayers." 
There's a little malice in the Bishop's "just before prayers." 

This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is 
harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He was doing good, 
and to deserving men too, in the midst of these intrigues and 
triumphs. His journals and a thousand anecdotes of him relate 
his kind acts and rough manners. His hand was constantly 
stretched out to relieve an honest man — he was cautious about 
his money, but ready. — If you were in a strait would you like 
such a benefactor? I think I would rather have had a potato 
and a friendly word from Goldsmith than have been beholden 
to the Dean for a guinea and a dinner.! He insulted a man as 
he served him, made women cry, guests look foolish, bullied 
unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into poor men's 
faces. No ; the Dean was no Irishman — no Irish ever gave 
but with a kind word and a kind heart. « 

* " Swift must be allowed," says Dr. Johnson, " for a time, to have dictated the 
political opinions of the English nation.'' 

A conversation on the Dean's pamphlets excited one of the Doctor's liveliest 
sallies, " One, in particular, praised his 'Conduct of the Allies.' — Johnson: 'Sir, 
his ' Conduct of the Allies ' is a performance of very little ability. * * * Why, sir, 
Tom Davies might have written the • Conduct of the Allies ! ' "— Boswell's Life of 

jfoktLSOll. 

t *' Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first time, it was his 
custom to try their tempers and disposition by some abrupt question that bore the 
appearance of rudeness. If this were well taken, and answered with good humor, he 
afterwards made amends by his civilities. But if he saw any marks of resentment, 
from alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all further intercoursewith the 
party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. 
After supper, the Dean having decanted a bottle of wine, poured whatremained into 
a glass, and seeing it was muddy, presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it. ' For,' 
said he. " I always keep some poor parson to drink the foul wine for me.' Mr. Pilk- 
ington, entering into his humor, tlianked liim, and told him ' he did not know the 
difference, but was glad *o get a glass at any rate.' ' Why, then,' said the Dean, 'you 

shan't, for I'll drink it myself. Why, take you, you are wiser than a paltry curate 

whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago ; for upon my making the same speech 
to liim, he said lie did not imderstand such usage, and so walked off without his din- 
ner. By the same token, I told the gentleman who recommended him to me that the 
<ello\\ was a blockhead, and I had done with him.' * — Sheridan's Life of Swiff . 



386 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean 
St. Patrick's performed his family devotions every morning re 
ularly, but with such secrecy that the guests in his house weri 
never in the least aware of the ceremony. There was no nee 
surely why a church dignitary should assemble his family pri 
ily in a crypt, and as if he was afraid of heathen persecutio 
But I think the world was right, and the Bishops who advise 
Queen Anne, when they counselled her not to appoint the autho| 
of the "Tale of a Tub" to a bishopric, gave perfectly good acj 
vice. The man who wrote the arguments and illustrations ijg 
that wild book, could not but be aware what must be the seque| 
of the propositions which he laid down. The boon companio| 
of Pope and Bolingbroke, who chose these as the friends of hia 
life, and the recipients of his confidence and affection, must 
have heard many an argument, and joined in many a conversa^ 
tion over Pope's port, or St. John's Burgundy, which would not 
bear to be repeated at other men's boards. ,, 

I know of few things more conclusive as to the sincerity m 
Swift's religion than his advice to poor John Gay to turn clera 
gyman, and look out for a seat on the Bench. Gay, the autho^! 
of the " Beggar's Opera " — Gay, the wildest of the wits abouli! 
town — it was this man that Jonathan Swift advised to tak^s 
orders — to invest in a cassock and bands — just as he advised 
him to husband his shillings and put liis thousand pounds out 
at interest.* The Queen, and the bishops, and the world, weret 
right in mistrusting the religion of that man. 



From The Archbishop of Cashell. 

" Cashell^ May T^ist, 1735. 



^ J 

"Dear Sir,— 

" I HAVE been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that I am resolved i ; 
have no more, especially where I am likely to be overmatched ; and as I have som 
reason to hope what is past will be forgotten, I confess I did endeavor in my last 
put the best color T could think of upon a very bad cause. My friends judge righl 
of my idleness ; but, in reality, it has hitherto proceeded from a hurry and confusion 
arising from a thousand unlucky unforeseen accidents rather than mere sloth. I haw 
but one troublesome affair now upon my hands, which, by the help of the prime sei 
jeant, I hope soon to get rid of ; and then you shall see me a true Irish bishop. S} 
James Ware has male a very useful collection of the memorable actions of my prede 
cessors. He tells me, they were born in such a tovni of England or Ireland ; weri 
consecrated such a year ; and if not translated, were buried in the Cathedral church 
either on the north or south side. Whence I conclude, that a good bishop has noth 
ing more to do than to eat, drink, grow fat, rich, and die ; which laudable example 
propose for the remainder of my life to follow ; for to tell you the truth, I have f 
these four or five years past met with so much treachery, baseness, and ingratitu( 
among mankind, that I can hardly think it incumbent on any man to endeavor to di 
good to so perverse a generation 

" I am truly concerned at the account you gave me of your health. Withoii 
doubt a southern ramble will prove the best remedy you can take to recover yoq 
flesh ; and I do not know, except in one stage, where you can choose a road so suito 



t 



SWIFT. 



387 



I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's religious views, 
jxcept in so far as they influence his literary character, his life, 
i?s humor. The most notorious sinners of all those fellow- 
nortals whom it is our business to discuss — Harry Fielding and 
Dick Steele, were especially loud, and I believe really fervent, 
n their expressions of belief ; they belabored freethinkers, 
ind stoned imaginary atheists on all sorts of occasions, going 
Dut of their way to bawl their own creed, and persecute their 
neighbor's, and if they sinned and stumbled, as they constantly 
did with debt, with drink, with all sorts of bad behavior, they 
^ot upon their knees and cried " Peccavi " with a most sonor- 
Dus orthodoxy. Yes ; poor Harry Fielding and poor Dick 
Steele were trusty and undoubting Church of England men ; 
they abhorred Popery, Atheism, and wooden shoes, and idola- 
tries in general ; and hiccough Church and State with fervor. 

But Swift? His mind had had a different schooling, and 
possessed a very different logical power. He was not bred up 
in a tipsy guard-room, and did not learn to reason in a Covent 
Garden tavern. He could conduct an argument from begin- 
ning to end. He could see forward with a fatal clearness. In 
is old age, looking at the " Tale of a Tub," when he said, 
" Good God, what a genius I had when I wrote that book ! " I 
.think he was admiring not the genius, but the consequences to 
Which the genius had brought him — a vast genius, a magnifi- 
cent genius, a genius wonderfully bright, and dazzling, and 
Istrong, — to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon falsehood and 
scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden motives, 
and expose the black thoughts of men, — an awful, an evil 
spirit. 

Ah man ! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's library, you 

ito ycair circumstances, as from Dublin hither. You have to Kilkenny a turnpike and 
good inns, at every ten or twelve miles' end. From Kilkenny hither is twenty long 
miles, bad road, and no inns at all : but I have an expedient for you. At the foot of 
!a very high hill, just midway, there lives in a neat thatched cabin, a parson, who is 
inot poor ; his wife is allowed to be the best little woman in the world. Her chickens 
are the fattest, and her ale the best in all the country. Besides, the parson has a 
)ittle cellar of his own, of which he keeps the key, where he always has a hogshead of 
the best wine that can be got, in bottles well corked, upon their side ; and he cleans, 
and pulls out the cork better, I think, than Robin. Here I design to meet you with 
a coach ; if you be tired, you shall stay all night ; if not, after dinner, we will set out 
about four, and be at Cashell by nine ; and by going through fields and by-ways, which 
the parson will show us, we shall escape all the rocky and stony roads that lie between 
this place and that, which are certainly very bad. 1 hope you will be so kind as to 
let me know a post or two before you set out, the very day you will be at Kilkenny, 
that I may have all things prepared for you. It may be, if you ask him. Cope will 
come : he will do nothing for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive promise, 
I shall add no more arguments to persuade vou. and am, with the greatest truth, your 
most faithful and obedient servant, " Theo, Cashell." 



388 ENGL rSII HUM ORIS TS. 

whose friends were Pope and St. John — what made you 
swear to fatal vows, and bind yourself to a life-long hypocr^ 
before the Heaven which you adored with such real wondjt 
humility, and reverence ? For Swift was a reverent, was 
pious spirit — for Swift could love and could pray. Throu 
the storms and tempests of his furious mind, the stars of J 
ligion and love break out in the blue, shining serenely, tho« : 
hidden by the driving clouds and the maddened hurricane^ 
his life. :. 

It is my belief that he suffered frightfully from the d 
sciousness of his own skepticism, and that he had bent his pi^ 
so far down as to put his apostasy out to hire.* The paper J 
behind him, called '" Thoughts on Religion," is merely a sel 
excuses for not professing disbelief. He says of his sermi^ 
that he preached pamphlets : they have scarce a Christian cli 
acteristic ; they might be preached from the steps of a sy 
gogue, or the floor of a mosque, or the box of a coffee-hoi 
almost. There is little or no cant — he is too great and 
proud for thai ; and, in so far as the badness of his serml 
goes, he is honest. But having put that cassock on, it poisoii i 
him : he was strangled in his bands. He goes through life, te i 
ing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in 
Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fury, and k 
that the night will come and the inevitable hag with it. W 
a night, my God, it was ! what a lonely rage and long agon; 
what a vulture that tore the heart of that giant If It is awfu 
think of the great sufferings of this great man. Through '. 
he always seems alone, somehow. Goethe was so. 1 ca^ 
fancy Shakspeare otherwise. The giants must live apart. % 
kings can have no company. But this man suffered so; ^ 
deserved so to suffer. One hardly reads anywhere of suci 
pain. 

The " saiva indignatio " of which he spoke as lacerati 
his heart, and which he dares to inscribe on his tombstone—? 
if the wretch who lay under that stone waiting God's judgm< 
had a right to be angry — breaks out from him in a thous^ 
pages of his writing, and tears and rends him. Against nj 

* " Mr. Swift lived with him [Sir William Temple] some time, but resolvin^ 
settle himself in some way of living, was inclined to take orders. However, althoui 
his fortune was very small, he had a scruple of entering into the Church merely f 
?>Vi^\>oxir — Anecdotes of the Family of Sun ft, by the Dean. 

t " Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles could scar 
soften, or his utmost gayety render placid and serene ; but when that sternness 
visage was increased by rage, it is i-carce possible to imagine looks or features tli. 
carried in them more terror and austeritv." — Orrery. 



nil 



1 



j SWIFT. 389 

office, he having been overthrown ; against men in England, 
haviiU lost iiis chance of preferment there, the furious exile 
i-er fa?ls to rage and curse. Is it fair to call the famous 
)rapier's Letters " patriotism ? They are masterpieces of 
jadful humor and invective: they are reasoned logically 
High too, but the proposition is as monstrous and fabulous 
:the Lilliputian island. It is not that the grievance is so 
;at, but there is his enemy-— the assault is wonderful for its 
.-ivi'ty and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his 
fid. rushing on his enemies and felling them : one admires 
t the cause so much as the strength, the anger, the fury of 
> champion. As is the case with madmen, certain subjects 
Dvoke him, and awaken his fits of wrath. Marriage is one 
these ; in a hundred passages in his writings he rages against 
: rages against children ; an object of constant satire, even 
i)re contemptible in his eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a poor 
rate w^ith a large familv. The idea of this luckless paternity 
fver fails to bring down from him gibes and foul language. 
5uld Dick Steele, or Goldsmith, or Fielding, in his most reek- 
is moment of satire, have written anything like the Dean's 
inous " modest proposal " for eating children ? Not one of 
ese but melts at the thoughts of childhood, fondles and car- 
ses it. Mr. Dean has no such softness, and enters the nursery 
.th the tread and gavety of an ogre.* " I have been assured," 
ys he in the " Modest Proposal," "by a very knowing Amer- 
an of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy 
iild, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishmg, 
id wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled ; 
id I make no doubt it will equally serve in a ragout r And 
.king up this pretty joke, as his way is, he argues it with per- 
ict gravity and logic. He turns and twists this subject_ in a 
:ore of different ways : he hashes it ; and he serves it up 
bid ; and he garnishes it ; and relishes it always. He describes 
ie little animal as " dropped from its dam," advising that the 
iother should let it suck plentifully in the last month, so as to 
bnder it plump and fat for a good table ! " " A child," says 
is Reverence, " will make two dishes at an entertamment for 
•lends ; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind 
luarter will make a reasonable dish," and so on ; and, the 

I * "■ London, Ap-i! loih^ij^y 

" Lpdv Mashain's eldest boy is very ill : I doubt he will not live; and she stays at 
Lensinaton to muse him, which vexes us all. She is so excessively iond it makes 
te mad. She should never leave the Queen, but leave everything, to stick to what is 
i much the interest of the public, as well as her own. * * * * —Jounia.. 



39° ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

subject being so delightful that he can't leave it, he proce^ 
to recommend, in place of venison for squires' tables, "i 
bodies of young lads and maidens not exceeding fourteen, 
under twelve." Amiable humorist ! laughing castigator' 
morals! There was a process well known and practised; 
the Dean's gay days : when a lout entered the coffee-hou, 
the wags proceeded to what they called " roasting" him. T] 
is roasting a subject with a vengeance. The Dean had a natj 
genius for it. As the " Almanach des Gourmands " says j 
nait rotisseiw. ' 

And it was not merely by the sarcastic method that S\\i 
exposed the unreasonableness of loving and having childr^^ 
In Gulliver, the folly of love and marriage is urged by o-ra^^j 
arguments and advice. In the famous Lilliputian kin|dol 
Swift speaks with approval of the practice of instantly remdt! 
ing children from their parents and educating them by tl 
State ; and amongst his favorite horses, a pair of foals an 
stated to be the very utmost a well-regulated equine coup 
would permit themselves. In fact, our great satirist was ( 
opinion that conjugal love was unadvisable, and illustrated tl 
theory by his own practice and example— God help him— whic^ 
made hmi about the most wretched being in God's world.* i 

The grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposition, i 
exemplified in the cannibal propos^ just mentioned, is oi 
authors constant method through all his works of humif 
Given a country of people six inches or sixty feet high, and % 
the mere process of the logic, a thousand wonderful absurditic 
are evolved, at so many stages of the calculation. Turning t 
the first minister who waited behind him with a white sto 
near as tall as the mainmast of the " Royal Sovereign," th 
King of Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing humj 
grandeur is, as represented by such a contemptible little rre 
ture as Gulliver. "The Emperor of Lilliput's features i. 
strong and masculine " (what a surprising humor there is ' 
this description !)—" The Emperor's features," Gulliver say 
" are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip, an arch< 
nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his boc 
and limbs well proportioned, and his deportment majestic. P: 
is taller by the breadth of my nail than any of his court, whi( 
alone is enough to strike an awe into beholders." 

What a surprising humor there is in these description, 
How noble the satire is here ! how just and honest ! He 

* "My health is somewhat mended, but at best I have an il] head and an achi 
heart. — In Ma\< 1710. 



SWIFT. 391 

rfect the image ! Mr. Macaulay has quoted the charming 
es of the poet, where the king of the pygmies is measured 
the same standard. We have all read in Milton of the 
ear that was like " the mast of some tall admiral," but these 
ao-es are surely likely to' come to the comic poet originally, 
le'' subject is before him. He is turning it in a thousand 
tys He is full of it. The figure suggests itself naturally 
I him, and comes out of his subject, as in that wonderful pas- 
cre, when Gulliver's box having been dropped by the eagle 
ro 'the sea, and Gulliver having been received into the ship's 
bin, he calls upon the crew to bring the box into the cabm, 
d put it on the table, the cabin being only a quarter the 
le of the box. It is the veracity of the blunder which is so 
Unirable. Had a man come from such a country as Brob- 
ngnag he would have blundered so. 

' But the best stroke of humor, if there be a best in that 
)Ounding book, is that where Gulliver, in the unpronounceable 
mntry, describes his parting from his master the horse. " I 

. * Perliaps the most melancholy satire in the whole of the dreadful book, is the de- 
•iption of the very old people in the " Voyage to Laputa. At Lugnag, Gulliver 
ars of some persons who never die, called the Struldbrugs, and expressmg a wish 
■become acquainted with men who must have so much learnmg and experience, his 
lloquist describes the Struldbrugs to him. 

"He said : They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty years old after 
^ich Iw degrees, they grow melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they 
me \o fourscore. This he learned from their own profession : for otherwise there 
t being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form 
ireneral observation by. When they came to fourscore years which is reckoned the 
tremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of 
her old men, but many more, which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dy- 
Z. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but 
capable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below 
eir grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevaihng passions. But 
ose^'obiects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the 
•unger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find them- 
■Ives cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral, they 
ment, and repine that others are gone to a harbor of rest, to which they themselves 
'ver can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they 
arned and observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very imperfect, 
tid for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition 
,an upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be 
osewho turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more 
ty and assistance, because thev want many bad qualities which abound in others. 
" If a Struldburg happen to marry one of his own kind, the marriage is dissolved 

course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, as soon as the younger of the two comes to 
J fourscore. For the law thinks it a reasonable indulgence that those who are con- 
bimed, without any fault of their own, to a perpetual continuance m the world, shouia 
Dt have their misery doubled by the load of a wife. , 1 1 „ oe 

" As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are ooked on as 
bad in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates, only a small pittance is 
iserved for their support ; and the poor ones are maintained at the pubhc char e 

fter that period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit, they 



392 



ENGLISH HUMOR IS TS. 



took,'*' he says, '' a second leave of my master, but as I wi 
going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he did me the hon' 
to raise it gently to my mouth. I am not ignorant how mui 
I have been censured for mentioning this last particular. E 
tractors are pleased to think it improbable that so illustrious 
person should descend to give so great a mark of distinctic 
to a creature so inferior as I. Neither have I forgotten he 
apt some travellers are to boast of extraordinary favors thi 
have received. But if these censurers were better acquaints 
with the noble and courteous disposition of the HouyhnhuK^ 
they would soon change their opinion." -1 

The surprise here, the audacity of circumstantial eviderf^ 
tlie astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant h'^ 
much he has been censured, the nature of the favor conferr^ 
and the respectful exultation at the receipt of it, are sur^ 
complete ; it is truth topsy-turvy, entirely logical and absurd.li 

As for the humor and conduct of this famous fable, I su 
pose there is no person who reads but must admire ; as for tl 

cannot purchase lands or take leases, neither are they allowed to be witnesses in a 
cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of nieers and bounds. 

" At ninety they lose their teeth and hair ; they have at thata,a;e no distinction 
taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get without relish or appetite. The d 
eases Ihey were subject to still continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talkir 
they forget the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even 
those who are their nearest friends and relations. For the same reason, they cq 
never amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not serve to cari 
tl«;m from the beginning of a sentence to the end ; and by this defect they arc 
prived <;f the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable. 

" The language of this country being always upon the flux, the .Struldbrugs of > 
age do not understand those of anotlier ; neither are they able, after two hundr 
years, to hold any conversation (further than by a few general words) witli Wn 
neighbors, the mortals ; and thus tlicy lie under the disadvantage of living like f( 
eigncrs in their own country. 

" This was the accoimt given me of the Struldbrugs, as near as I can remembc 
I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, the youngest not above two jnmdn 
years old, who were brought to me at several times by some of my friends ; but ; 
though they were told ' that I was a great traveller, and had seen all the world,' tin 
had not the least curiosity to ask me a question ; only desired I would give tlic 
slumskudask, or a token of remembrance ; which is a modest way of begging, to avo 
the law, that strictly forbids it, because they are provided for by the public, althouj 
indeed with a very scanty allowance. 

" They are despised and hated by all sorts of people ; when one of them is born, 
is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded very particularly ; so that you m: 
know their age by consulting the register, which, however, has not been kt pt above 
thousand years past, or at least has been destroyed by time or public disturbance 
But the usual way of computing how old they are, is by asking them what kings ( 
great persons they can remember, and then consulting history ; for infallibly the la 
prince in their mind did not begin his reign after they were fourscore years old. 

•' They v/ere the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and the women more horrib 
than the men ; besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an ai 
ditional ghastliness. in ])roportion to their number of years, which is not to be d 
scribed; and among half a dozen, I soon distinguished which was the eldest, aUhoug 
there was not above a centurv or two between them." — Gulliver's Travels. 



SWIFT. ^^^^ 



ml, I think it iiorrible, shameful, urimaitlv, blasphemous ; and 
nt and great as this Dean is, I say we should hoot him. 
■ne of this audience mayn't have read the last part of Gulli- 
■, and to such I would recall the advice of the venerable Mr. 
nch to persons about to marry, and say " Don't."" When 
lliver iirst lands among the Yahoos, the naked howling 
etches clamber up trees and assault him, and he describes 
nself as " almost stifled with the filth which fell about him." 
e reader of the fourth part of " Gulliver's Travels" is like 
: hero himself in this instance. It is Yahoo language : a 
nster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations against 
nkind — tearing down all shreds of modesty, past all sense of 
mliness and shame ; filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, 
^ing, obscene. 

And dreadful it is to think that Swift knew the tendency of 

; creed — the fatal rocks towards which his logic desperately 

ifted. That last part of *' Gulliver " is only a consequence of 

lat has gone before ; and the worthlessness of all mankind, 

pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecility, the general vanity, the 

Dlish pretension, the mock greatness, the pompous dulness, 

e mean aims, the base successes — all these were present to 

11 ; it was \\\i\\ the din of these curses of the world, blas- 

emies against heaven, shrieking in his ears, that he began to 

ite his dreadful allegory — of which the meaning is that man 

utterly wicked, desperate, and imbecile, and his passions are 

monstrous, and his boasted powers so mean, that he is and 

serves to be the slave of brutes, and ignorance is better than 

s vaunted reason. What had this man done ? wdiat secret 

morse was rankling at his heart ? what fever was boiling in 

m, that he should see all the world bloodshot ? We view the 

prld with our own eyes, each of us ; and we make from with- 

us the world we see. A weary heart gets no gladness out of 

m shine ; a selfish man is skeptical about friendship, as a man 

ith no ear doesn't care for music. A frightful self-conscious- 

bss it must have been, which looked on mankind so darkly 

trough those keen eyes of Swift. 

' A remarkable story is told by Scott, of Delany, who inter- 
ipted Archbishop King and Swift in a conversation which left 
le prelate in tears, and from which Swift rushed aw-ay with 
arks of strong terror and agitation in his countenance, uj^on 
hich the Archbishop said to Delan}*, " You have just met the 
lost unhappy man on earth ; but on the subject of his wretch- 
iness you must never ask a question." 
The most unhappy man on earth ; — Miserrimus — what a 



394 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



character of him ! And at this time all the great wits of Engj 
land had been at his feet. All Ireland had shouted after hina^ 
and worshipped him as a liberator, a savior, the greatest Irisl 
patriot and citizen. Dean Drapier Bickerstaff Gulliver — thq 
most famous statesmen, and the greatest poets of his day, haoj 
applauded him, and done him homage ; and at this time, writ 
ing over to Bolingbroke from Ireland, he says, " It is time fp] 
me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could ge^: 
into a better before I was called into the best, and fiot die hen, 
in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole,'''' 

We have spoken about the men and Swift's behavior tc 
them ; and now it behoves us not to forget that there are ceA 
tain other persons in the creation who had rather intimat|| 
relations with the great Dean.* Tw^o women whom he lovedi 
and injured are known by every reader of books so famitl 
iarly that if we had seen them, or if they had been relatives o 
our own, we scarcely could have known them better. Wh( { 
hasn't in his mind an image of Stella 'i Who does not lov( 
her? Fair and tender creature: pure and affectionate heart 
Boots it to you, now that you have been at rest for a hundrec 
and twenty years, not tlivided in death from the cold hear 
which caused yours, while it beat, such faithful pangs of lov( 
and grief — boots it to you now, that the whole world loves anq 
deplores you .'' Scarce any man, I believe, ever thought of tha 
grave, that did not cast a flower of pity on it, and wTite over i 
a sweet epitaph. Gentle lady, so lovely, so loving, so unhappy 
you have had countless champions ; millions of manly heart! 
mourning for you. From generation to generation we take uj 
the fond tradition of your beauty ; we watch and follow youi 
tragedy, your bright morning love and purity, j^our constancy 

* The name of Varina has been thrown into the shade by those of the famou 
Stella and Vanessa ; but she had a story of her own to tell about the blue eyes c 
young Jonathan. One may say that the book of Swift's Life opens at places kept b 
these blighted flowers ! Varina must have a paragraph. , 

She was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. In 1696, whei 
Swift was nineteen years'old, we find him writing a love-letter to her, beginning, " In 
patience is the most inseparable quality of a lover." But absence made a great diffei 
ence in his feelings ; so, four years afterwards, the tone is changed. He writes again 
a very curious letter, offering to marry her, and putting the offer in such a way thai 
nobody could possibly accept it. 

After dwelling on his poverty, &c., he says, conditionally, " I shall be blessed t 
have you in my arms, without regarding whether your person be beautiful, or youi 
fortune large. Cleanliness in the first, and competency in the second, is all I as 
f or ! " 

The editors do not tell us what became of Varina in life. One would be glad t 
know that she met with some worthy partner, and lived long enough to see her littl 
boys laughing over Lilliput, without any arrih-e pensee of a sad character about th 
great Dean ! 



siv/FT. 395 

rour grief, your sweet martyrdom. We know your legend by 
leart.'^ You are one of the saints of English story. 

And if Stella's love and innocence are charming to contem- 
plate, I will say that in spite of ill-usage, in spite of drawbacks, 
n spite of mysterious separation and union, of hope delayed 
md sickened heart— in the teeth of Vanessa and that little 
;pisodical aberration which plunged Swift into such woeful pit- 
alls and quagmires of amorous perplexity— in spite of the 
verdicts of most women, I believe, who, as far as my experience 
md conversation go, generally take Vanessa's part in the con- 
troversy — in spite" ot the tears which Swift caused Stella to 
shed, and the rocks and barriers which fate and temper inter- 
posed, and which prevented the pure course of that true love 
from 'running smoothly— the brightest part of Swift's ^ story, 
the pure star in that dark and tempestuous life of Swift's, is 
his love for Hester Johnson. It has been my business, pro- 
fessionally of course, to go through a deal of sentimental 
reading in my time, and to acquaint myself with love-making, 
as it has been described in various languages, and at various 
ages of the world ; and I know of nothing more manly, more 
tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these brief 
notes, written in what Swift calls " his little language " in his 
journal to Stella.* He writes to her night and morning often. 
fHe never sends away a letter to her but he begins a new one 
^on the same day. He can't bear to let go her kind little hand, 
las it were. He' knows that she is thinking of him, and longnig 
' for him far away in Dublin yonder. He takes her letters from 
I under his pillow and talks to them, familiarly, paternally, with 
■fond epithets and pretty caresses— as he would to the sweet 
and artless creature who loved him. " Stay," he writes one 
morning — it is the 14th of December, 1710— " Stay, I will 
: answer some of your letter this morning in bed. Let me see. 
■ Come and appear, little letter ! Here I am, says he, and what 
say you to Stella this morning fresh and fasting ? And can 

* A sentimental Champollion might find a good deal of matter for his art, in ex- 
pounding the symbols of the -Little Language" Usually, Stella is " M D.,^ but 
sometimes her companion, Mrs. Dingly, is included m it. Swift is Presto also 
P.D.F.R. We have "Good-night, M.D. ; Night, M.D. ; Little, M.D. ; SteHakins 
Pretty Stella ; Dear, roguish, impudent, pretty M. D." Every now and then he 
breaks into rhyme, as — 

"I wish you both a merry new year, 
Roast-beef, minced-pies, and good strong beer, 
And me a share of your good cheer. 
That I was there, as you were here, 
And you a little saucy dear " 



39 6 ENGL IS 11 HU. MORLS TS. 

Stella read this writing without hurting her dear eyes?" he: 
goes on, after more kind prattle and fond whispering. The. 
dear eyes shine clearly upon him tlien — the good angel of hisl 
life is with him and blessing him. Ah, it was a hard fate thatj 
wrung from them so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly that pure ' 
and tender bosom. A hard fate ; but would she have changed it ?: i 
I have heard a woman say that she would have taken Swift's ; 
cruelty to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship' 
for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is 
gone ; of her wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, 
with a simple love and reverence that are indescribably touch- 
ing ; in contemplation of her goodness his hard heart melts 
into pathos ; his cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetry, 
and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before the angel 
whose life he had embittered, confesses his own wretched- 
ness and unworthiness, and adores her with cries of remorse 
and love : — 

" When on my sickly couch I lay, 
Impatient both of nij^ht and day, 
And groaning in unmanly strains, 
Called every power to case my pains, 
Then Stella ran to my relief, 
With cheerful face and inward grief, 
And though by heaven's severe decree 
She suffers hourly more than me, 
No cruel master could require 
From slaves employed for daily hire. 
What Stella, by her friendship warmed, 
With vigor and delight performed. 
Now, with a soft and silent tread. 
Unheard she moves about my bed : 
My sinking spirits now supplies 

With cordials in her hands and eyes, ^ 

Best pattern of true friends ! beware ; 
You pay too dearly for your care 
If, while your tenderness secures 
My life, it must endanger yours : 
For such a fool was never found 
Who pulled a palace to the ground. 
Only to have t!ie ruins made 
Materials for a house decayed." 

One little triumph Stella had in her life — one dear little 
piece of injustice was performed in her favor, for which I con- 
fess, for my part, I can't help thanking fate and the Dean.- 
TJiat other person was sacrificed to her — that — that young wo- 
man, who lived five doors from Dr. Swift's lodgings in Bury 
Street, and who flattered him, and made love to him in such an 
outrageous manner — Vanessa was thrown over. 

Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply to those 



SIVIFT. 



397 



he wrote to her.* He kept Bolingbroke's, and Pope's, and 
Harley's, and Peterborough's : but Stella, " very carefully," the 
Lives say, kept Swift's. Of course : that is the way of the 
world : and so we cannot tell what her style was, or of what 
sort were the little letters which the Doctor placed there at 
night, and bade to appear from under his pillow of a morning. 
But in letter IV. of that famous collection he describes his 
lodging in Bury Street, v.'here he has the first floor, a dining- 
room and bed chamber, at eight shillings a week ; and in letter 
VI. he says " he has visited a lady just come to town," whose 
name somehow is not mentioned ; and in Letter VIII. he 
enters a query of Stella's — " What do you mean ' that boards 
near me, that I dine with now and then ?' What the deuce ! 
You know whom I 1: e dined with every day since I left you, 
better than I do." Oc course she does. Of course Swift has 
not the slightest idea of what she means. But in a few letters 
more it turns out that the Doctor has been to dine " gravely " 
with a Mrs. Vanhomrigh : then that he has been to " his neigh- 
bor : " then that he has, been unwell, and means to dine for the 

* The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on the evening of the 
day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727-ii : — 

"She was sickly from her childhood, until about the age of fifteen ; but then she 
grew into perfect health, and was looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, 
and agreeable young women in London — only a little too fat. Her hair v/as blacker 
than a raven and every feature of her face in perfection. 

«t * * * *■ Properly speaking " — he goes on, V'.'ith a calmness which, under the 
circumstances, is terrible — " she has loeen dying six months 1 * * * * 

" Never was any (;f her sex born with better gifts of the mind, or who more im- 
proved them by reading and conversation. * * * * All of us who had the happi- 
ness of her friendship agreed unanimously that in an afternoon's or evening's conver- 
sation she never failed before we parted of delivering the best thing that was said in 
the company. Some of us have written down several of her sayings, or what the 
French call bons rnots, wherein she excelled beyond belief." 

The specimens on record, however, in the Dean's paper, called " Bons Mots de 
Stella," carcely bears out this last part of the panegyric. But the following prove 
her wit ; — 

" A gentleman who had been very silly and pert in her company, at last began to 
grieve at remembering the loss of a child lately dead. A bishop sitting by comforted 
him — that he should be easy, because " the child was gone to heaven.' ' No, my 
lord,' said she ; ' that is it which most grieves him, because he is sure never to see his 
child there." 

'' When she was extremely ill, her physician said, ' Madam, you are near the 
bottom of the hill, but we will endeavor to get you up again.' She answered, ' Doctor, 
I fear I shall be out of breath before I get up to the top.' 

" A very dirty c'.Cirgym.an of her acquaintance, who affected smartness and repar- 
tees, was asked by some of the company how his nails came to be 90 dirty. He was at 
a loss ; but she solved the difficulty by saying. * The Doctor's nails grew dirty by 
scratching himself.' 

" A Quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked ; it had a broad brim, and a label of 
paper about its neck. ' What is that .? ' — said she — ' my apothecary's son ! ' The ridic- 
ulous resemblance, and the suddenness of the question, set us all a-laughing."—- 
Swift's Works, Scott's Ed. vol. ix. 295-6«; 



398 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

whole week with his neighbor ! Stella was quite right in hei 
previsions. She saw from the very first hint, what was goin| 
to happen ; and scented Vanessa in the air.* The rival is al 
the Dean's feet. The pupil and teacher are reading together! 
and drinking tea together, and going to prayers together, an( 
learning Latin together, and conjugating aino^ amas, amavi \6\ 
gether. The little language is over for poor Stella. By th( 
rule of grammar and the course of conjugation, doesn't amavi 
come after a7}io and a77ias 2 

rhe loves of Cadenus and Vanessa t you may peruse in 
Cadenus's own poem on the subject, and in poor Vanessa's 
vehement expostulatory verses and letters to him ; she adores 
him, implores him, admires him, thinks him something, god- 
like, and only prays to be admitted to lie at his feet.j As 
they are bringing him home from church, those divine feet of 
Dr. Swift's are found pretty often in Vanessa's parlor. He 
likes to be admired and adored. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh 
to be a woman of great taste and spirit, and beauty and wit, 
and a fortune too. He sees her every day ; he does not tell 
Stella about the business : until the impetuous Vanessa be- 
comes too fond of him, until the Doctor is quite frightened by 

* I am so hot and lazy after my morning's walk, that I loitered at Mis. Van- 
honnigh's, where my best gown and periwig was, and out of mere listlessncss dine 
there very often ; Sol did to-day."' — Journal to Stella. 

Mrs. Vanhomrigli, " Vanessa's '' mother, was the widow of a Dutch merchant who 
held lucrative apjiointments in King WiUiam's time. The family settled in London 
in 1709, and had a house in Bury Street, St. James's — a street made notable by such 
residents as Swift and Steele ; and, in our own time, Moore and Crabbe. 

t " Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her by Cadenus is fine 
painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress ; impatient to be admired ; 
very romantic in her turn of mind ; superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex ; full 
of pertness, gayety, and pride ; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but far 
from being either bv^autiful or genteel ; * * * i- happy in the thoughts of being 
reported Swift's concubine, but still aiming and intending to be his wife." — Lord 
Orrery. 

X " You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could. You had 
better have said, as often as you can get the better of 'your inclinations so much ; or 
as often as you remember there was-isuch a one in the world. If you continue to treat 
me as you do, you will not be ma '.e uneasy by me long. It is impossible to describe 
what I have suffered since I sa\N''you last : I am sure I could have borne the rack 
much better than those killing, killing words of yours. Sometimes I have resolved to 
die without seeing you more ; but those resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long ; 
for there is something in human nature that prompts one so to find relief in this world 
I must give way to it, and beg you would see me, and speak kindly to me ; for I am 
sure you'd not condemn any one to suffer what I have done, could you but know it. 
The reason I write to you is, because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you ; for 
when I begin to complain, then you are angry, and there is something in your looks 
so awful that it strikes me dumb. Oh ! that you may have but so much regard for 
me left that this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I 
can ; did you but know what 1 thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me; 
and believe I cannot help telling you this and live." — Vanessa. (M. 1714.) 



SWIFT. 399 

le Youno- woman's ardor, and confounded by her warmth. He 
ranted tS marrv neither of them— that I believe was the truth , 
ut if he had not married Stella, Vanessa would have had hnri 
1 spite of himself. When he went back to Ireland, his Ari- 
dne not content to remain in her isle, pursued the fiVJ^i^ive 
)ean In vain he protested, he vowed, he soothed, and bullied ; 
he news of the Dean's marriage with Stella at last came to 
,er, and it killed her— she died of that passion.* 

* "If we consider Swift's behavior, so far only as it relates to women wc shall 
nrl tliat he looked upon them rather as busts than as whole figures. —Orrerx . _ 

" You wovTd have^ smiled to have found his house a constant seragho of very v.r- 
nniis women who attended him from morning till night.' —Orrery. 

\ correspondent of Sir Walter Scott's furnished him with the materials on which 
o Lnd the fohowing interesting passage about Vanessa-after she had retired to 

^'"'F^l^e/Si^'niS'S^dge, where Miss Vanhomrigh resided, is built much 
n the foin of a eafcloister, especially in its external appearance. An aged man 
upward" of ninety, by his own account) showed the grounds ^o my correspondent 
rte was the son of Mrs. Vanhomriglvs gardener, and used to work with his lather in 
he "^?den when a boy. He remembered the unfortunate Vanessa well; and his 
ccorintoThe corresponded with the usual description of her person, especially as to 
S^;:;l4^.. Hisaidshewen^sem^^ 

"^ -^sT^r^^^^^^-^^ - r-i^ r' Till 

Smed happy. The garden was to an uncommon degree crowded with ^^^^^^b The 

lierself determined on bringing to a crisis those expectations of a union wth tr e 
oS S of h?r affections-to ^lehope of which she had clung amid every vicissitude of 
hScondict towards her. The m?st probable bar was his ^^^^^r^f,''^^^"^^ ^±, 
Mrs Johnson, which, as it must have been perfectly known to her, had, f o"^^JfJ^^>l;,f 
exci eel her secret jealousy, although only a single hmt to that PM^fe^f/ .^,^/^'.,J,'',',^^i; 
'nth ir correspondence, ind that so early as 1713, when ^"f^;;'^'^'^^^';^^^^ 
Ireland-' If you are very happy, it is ill-natured of you not to tell me ^^^^^P ^'^^ 
S is inconsistent Jth miner Her silence and patience "^.^^j .^h^ stat. of 
uncertainty for no less than eight years, must have ^^^^ Pf.%°^^^"4 ,\^^ 
Swift and, partly, perhaps, to the weak state of h:^r rival s J^^^^*^' ™''^,V''"',l^"' 
uvea' seemed to announce speedy dissolution., -^^ V'"f ' > ^S Mrs Tohn'on 
miitience prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step ^^ T^! "^? ^^^^;^-iJ?^,3 
h.4self, requesting to know the nature of that eonnectjon. Stella, m reply, mtoinxa 

e o fherVarriage with tl^3 Dean ; and full of the highest ^^sen ™ent a^^^^^ 
for having given another female such a right m him as ^iss Vanhomiigh s mc] me. 
mplied, she'sent to him her rival's letter of interrogation and, .vithout ^^^^ 
awaiting his reply, retired to the ^^ouse of Mr. Ford, near Dublin, l^vciy ^^ 
knows t\e consequence. Swift, in one of, ^hose parox>^ms of fmy to wh ch he ^ . 
liable, both from temper and disease, rode instantly ^ Marley Abbey As he ente 
the apartment, the sternness of his countenance, which ^^'^^ Pecija ly tormea 
express the fiercer passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa ^^^^^^^f/^^^'^^^lX on 
could scarce ask whether he would not sit down. He ^"^^^^J^^^by ^^^^^^^^^^^^ to Dublin! 
the table, and, instantly leaving the house, mounted his hoise, and returned to Uudu 



400 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had writt( 
beautifully regarding her, " That doesn't surprise me," said Mi 
Stella, " for we all know the Dean could write beautifully aboi 
a broomstick." A woman— a true woman ! Would you ha\ 
had one of them forgive the other ? 

\i\ a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend D 
Tuke, of Dubhn, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in 
paper by Swift, on which are written, in the Dean's hand, th 
words : " Only a wo77ia?i's hairr An instance, says Scott c 
the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of cvn 
cal indifference. 

See the various notions of critics ! Do those words indi 

cate indifference or an attempt to hide feeling ? Did you eve 

hear or read four words more pathetic ? Onfy a woman's hair 

only love, only fidelity, only purity, innocence, beauty ; only th( 

tenderest heart in the world stricken and wounded, and passec 

away now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, love insult 

ed, and pitiless desertion :— only that lock of hair left • anci 

memory and remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shudderinc^ 

over the grave of his victim. ^ 

And yet to have had so much love, he must have given 

some. Treasures of wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, 

must that man have had locked up in the caverns of his gloomift 

heart, and shone fitfully to one or two whom he took in there j 

But it was not good to visit that place. People did not remaiE ■ 

there long, and suffered for having been there.* He shrank 

away from all affections sooner or later. Stella and Vanessa 

both died near him and away from him. He had not hear] 

enough to see them die. He broke from his fastest friend 

Sheridan ; he slunk away from his fondest admirer. Pope. His 

laugh jars on one's ear after seven-score years. He was alwayg 

alone— alone and gnashing in the darkness, except when 

Stella's sweet smile came and shone upon him. When that 

went, silence and utter night closed over him. An immense 

When Vanessa opened the packet she only found her own letter to Stella. It was 
h-r death warrant She sunk at once under tlie disappointment of the delayed vet 
cherished hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the unres"trained' 
wratli ot him tor wliose sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this 
last mtervicw is uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a feW: 
weeks. — ocott. 

^ * " M. Swift est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne compaenie. Il 
n a pas a la v6nt6, la gait6 du premier, mais il a toute la finesse, la raison, le choix, le 
bon gofit qui manquent \ notre cur6 de Mcudon. Ses vers sont d'un goflt sm<rulic-r, 
et prcsque inimitable ; la bonne plaisanteric est son partage en vers et en prose f maia 
pour Ic bien entendre il faut faire un petit voyage dans son pays."-VoLTAiRE: 
Lettres sur les Anglais. Let 22. 



CONG REV E AXD ADDISOA\ 401 

genius : an awful downfall and ruin. So great a man he seems 
to me, that thinking of him is like thinking of an empire falling.. 
We have other great names to mention — none I think, how- 
ever, so great or so gloomy. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON. 

A GREAT number of years ago, before the passing of the 
Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a certain debating 
club, called the "Union;" and I remember that there was a 
tradition amongst the undergraduates who frequented that 
renowned school of oratory, that the great leaders of the 
Oppositon and Government had their eyes upon the University 
Debating Club, and that if a man distinguished himself there 
he ran some chance of being returned to Parliament as a great 
nobleman's nominee. So Jones of John's, or Thompson of 
Trinity, would rise in their might, and draping themselves in 
their gowns, rally round the monarchy, or hurl defiance at 
priests and kings, with the majesty of Pitt or the fire of Mira- 
beau, fancying all the while that the great nobleman's emissary 
was listening to the debate from the back benches, where he was 
sitting with the famil}^ seat in his pocket. Indeed, the legend said 
that one or two young Cambridge men, orators of the "Union," 
were actually caught up thence, and carried down to Cornwall 
or old Sarum, and so into Parliament. And many a young 
fellow deserted the jogtrot University curriculum, to hang on 
in the dust behind the fervid wheels of the parliamentary 
chariot. 

Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of Peers and 
Members of Parliament in Anne's and George's time ? Were 
they all in the army, or hunting in the country, or boxing the 
watch .? How was it that the young gentlemen from the Uni- 
versity got such a prodigious number of places ? A lad com- 
posed a neat copy of verses at Christchurch or Trinity, in 
which the death of a great personage was bemoaned, the 
French king assailed, the Dutch or Prince Eugene compli- 
mented, or the reverse ; and the party in power was presently 
to provide for the young poet ; and a commissionership, or a 
post in the Stamps, or the secretaryship of an Embassy, or a 
clerkship in the Treasury, came into the bard's possession. A 

26 



402 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

wonderful fruit-bearing rod was that of Busby's. What have 
men of letters got in our time ? Think, not only of Swift, a 
king fit to rule in any time or empire — but Addison, Steele, 
Prior, Tickell, Congreve, John Gay, John Dennis, and many 
others, who got public employment, and pretty little pickings 
out of the public purse.* The wits of whose names we shall 
treat in this lecture and two following, all (save one) touched 
the King's coin, and had, at some period of their lives, a happy 
quarter-day coming round for them. 

They all began at school or college in the regular way, pro- 
ducing panegyrics upon public characters, what were called 
odes upon public events, battles, seiges, court marriages and 
deaths, in which the gods of Olympus and the tragic muse were 
fatigued with invocations, according to the fashion of the time 
in France and in England. " Aid us. Mars, Bacchus, Apollo," 
cried Addison, or Congreve, shigingof William or Marlborough. 
^^ Accotirez, chastes nyjnphes du Permesse,'" says Boileau, celebrat- 
ing the Grand Monarch. '''' Des sofis que ma lyre enf ante \\\2.x- 
ques en bien la cadence, et vous refits, faitcs silence ! je vais parler 
de Louis /^^ Schoolboys' themes and foundation exercises are 
the only relics left now of this scholastic fashion. The Ol3'm- 
pians are left quite undisturbed in their mountain. What man 
of note, what contributor to the poetry of a country news- 
paper, would now think of writing a congratulatory ode on the 
birth of the heir to a dukedom, or the marriage of a nobleman ? 
In the past century the young gentlemen of the Universities all 
exercised themselves at these queer compositions ; and some 
got fame, and some gained patrons and places for life, and 
many more took nothing by these efforts of what they were 
pleased to call their muses. 

* The followins; is a conspectus of them : — 

Addison. — Commissioner of Appeals; Under Secretary of State; Secretary to the 
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; Keeper of the Records in Ireland ; Lord 
of Trade ; and one of the Principal Secretaries of State, successively. 

Steele. — Commissioner of the Stamp Office ; Surveyor of the Royal Stables at 
Hampton Court ; and Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians ; 
Commissioner of " Forfeited Estates in Scotland." 

Prior.— Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague ; Gentleman of the Bedchamber to 
King William ; Secretary to the Embassy in France ; Under Secretary 
of State ; Ambassador to France. 

Tickell. — Under Secretary of State ; Secretarj' to the Lord Justices of Ireland. 

Congreve. — Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches ; Commissioner for Wine 
Licenses ; place in the Pipe Office ; post in the Custom House ; Secre- 
tary of Jamaica. 

Gay. -Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to Hanover.) 

John Dennis. — A place in the Custom House. 

" En Angleterre *■* * * les lettres sont plus en honneur qu'ici.'' — Voltaire: 

Lettres sur les Anglais, Let. 20. 



CONG R EVE AND ADDISON. 403 

William Congreve's * Pindaric Odes are still to be found in 
" Johnson's Poets," that now unfrequented poets'-corner. in 
which so many forgotten bigwigs have a niche ; but though he 
was also voted to be one of the greatest tragic poets of any 
day, It was Congreve's wit and humor which first recommended 
him to courtly fortune. And it is recorded that his first play, 
the " Old Bachelor," brought our author to the notice of that 
great patron of English muses, Charles Montague Lord Plali- 
fax — who, being desirous to place so eminent a wit in a state 
of ease and tranquillity, instantly made him one of the Com- 
missioners for licensing hackney-coaches, bestowed on him 
soon after a place in the Pipe Office, and likewise a post in the 
Custom House of the value of 600/. 

A commissionership of hackney-coaches — a post in the 
Custom House — a place in the Pipe Office, and all for writing 
a comedy ! Doesn't it sound like a fable, that place in the 
Pipe Office ? t " Ah, I'heureux temps que celui de ces fables ! " 
Men of letters there still be : but I doubt whether any Pipe 
Offices are left. The public has smoked them long ago. 

Words, like men, pass current for a while with the public, 
and being known everywhere abroad, at length take their places 
in society ; so even the niost secluded and refined ladies here 
jDresent will have heard the phrase from their sons or brothers 
at school, and will permit me to call William Congreve, Esquire, 
the most eminent literary " swell " of his age. In my copy of 
" Johnson's Lives " Congreve's wig is the tallest, and put on 
with the jauntiest air of all the laurelled worthies. " I am the 
great Mr. Congreve," he seems to say, looking out from his 
voluminous curls. People called him the great Mr. Congreve.l 

* He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of Richard Con* 
grave, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in Staffordshire — a very ancient family 

t " Pipe. — Pipa., in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the.cr^^?^ roll. 

'' Pipe Office is an office in \Yhich a person called the Clerk of the Pipe makes out 
leases of Crown lands, by warrant from the Lord Treasurer, or Commissioners of the 
Treasury, or Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

'' Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c." — Rees : Cyclopad. 
Art. Pipe. 

" Pipe Office. — Spelman thinks so called, because the papers were kept in a large 
fipc or cask. 

'• • These be at last brought into that office of Her IMajesty's Exchequer, which 
we, by a metaphor, do call the pipe * * * because the whole receipt is finally 
conveyed into it by means of clivers small //^<?j- or quills.'— Bacon ; The Office of 
Alienations.''^ 

[We are indebted to Richardson's Dictionary for this fragment oi: erudition. But 
a modem man of letters can know little on tliese points — by experience.] 

X " It has been observed that no change of Ministers affected him in the least ; nor 
was he ever removed from any post that was given to him, except to a better. His 
place in the Custom House, ancl his office of Secretary in Jamaica, are said to have 
brought him in upwards of twelve hundred a year." — Biog. Brn., Art. Congreve. 



404 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

From the beginning of his career until the end ever3^body ad- 
mired him. Having got his education in Ireland, at the same 
school and college with Swift, he came to live in the Middle 
Temple, London, where he luckily bestowed no attention to 
the law ; but splendidly frequented the coffee-houses and 
theatres, and appeared in the side-box, the tavern, the Piazza, 
and the Mall, brilliant, beautiful, and victorious from the first. 
Everybody acknowledged the young chieftain. The great Mr. 
Dryden * declared that he was equal to Shakspeare, and be- 
queathed to him his own undisputed poetical crown, and writes 
of him : " Mr. Congreve has done me the favor to review the 
'^-Eneis,' and compare my version with the original. I shall 
never be ashamed to own that this excellent young man has 
showed me many faults which I have endeavored to correct." 

The " excellent young man " was but three or four and 
twenty when the great Dryden thus spoke of him : the greatest 
literary chief in England, the veteran" field-marshal of letters, 
himself the marked man of all Europe, and the centre of a 
school of wits w4io daily gathered round his chair and tobacco- 
pipe at Will's. Pope dedicated his " Iliad " to him ; t Swift, 

* Dryden addressed his "twelfth epistle" to " My dear friend, Mr. Congreve," on 
his comedy called the " Double Dealer," in which he says : — 

" Great Johnson did by strength of judgment please; 
Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease. 
In differing talents both adorned their age : 
One for the study, t'other for the stage. 
But both to Congreve justly shall submit, 
One match'd in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit. 
In him all beauties of this age we see," &c., &c. 

The " Double Dealer,'' however, was not so palpable a hit as the " Old Bachelor," 
but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having fallen foul of it, our " Swell " 
applied the scourge to that presumptuous body, in the " Epistle Dedicatory '' to 
the " Right Honorable Charles Montague." 

" 1 was conscious," said he, " where a true critic miglit have put me upon my 
defence. I was prepared for the attack, * * * * but I have not heard anything 
said sufficient to provoke an answer.'' 

He goes on — 

" But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the false criticisms 
that are made upon nie ; and that is, some of the ladies are offended. I am heartily 
sorry for it ; for I declare, I would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one 
of the fair sex. They are concerned that I have represented some women vicious and 
affected. How can I help it ? It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and 
[ollies of human kind. * * * * i should be very glad of an opportunity to make 
Iny compliments to those ladies who are offended. But they can no more expect it 
in a comedy, than to be tickled by a surgeon xvhcn he is letting their blood.' ^ 

t '■' Instead of endeavoring to raise a vain monument to myself, let me leave be- 
hind me a memorial of my friendship with one of the most valuable men as well as 
finest writers of my age and country — one who has tried, and knows by his own 
experience, how hard an undertaking it is to do justice to Homer — and one who, I am 
sure, seriously rejoices with me at the period of my labors. To him, therefore, having 
brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate it, and to have the honor 
and satisfaction of placing together in this manner tlie names of Mr. Congreve and of 
—A. Pope.'' — Postcript to Translation of the Iliad oj Homer, Mar. 25, 172-. 



COXGREVE AA'D ADDISON. 405 

Addison, Steele, all acknowledge Congreve's rank, and lavish 
compliments upon him. Voltaire went to wait upon him as one 
of the Representatives of Literature ; and the man who scarce 
praises any other living person — who flung abuse at Pope, and 
Swift, and Steele, and Addison — the Grub Street Timon, old 
John Dennis,* was hat in hand to Mr. Congreve ; and said 
that when he retired from the stage, Comedy went with him. 

Nor was he less victorious elsewhere. He was admired in 
the drawing-rooms as well as the coffee-houses ; as much be- 
loved in the side-box as on the stage. He loved, and con- 
quered, and jilted the beautiful Bracegirdle,t the heroine of all 
his plays, the favorite of all the town in her day ; and the 
Duchess of Marlborough, Marlborough's daughter, had such an 
admiration of him, that when he died she had an ivory figure 
made to imitate him,$ and a large wax doll with gouty feet to 
be dressed just as the great Congreve's gouty feet were dressed 
in his great lifetime. He saved some money by his Pipe 
Office, and his Custom House office, and his Hackney Coach 
office, and nobly left it, not to Bracegirdle, who wanted it,§ but 
to the Duchess of Marlborough, who didn't. || 

* "' When asked why he listened to the praises of Dennis, he said he had much 
rather be flattered than abused. Swift had a particular friendship for our author, and 
generously took him under his protection in his high authoritative manner," — Thos. 
Davies : Dr agnatic Miscellanies, 

t " Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and lived in the 
same street, his house very near hers, until his acquaintance with the young Duchess 
of Marlborough. He then quitted that house. The Duchess showed me a diamond 
necklace (which Lady Di. used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, 
and was purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it 
have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle." — Dr. Young. Spcncc's 
Anecdotes. 

X " A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was supposed to bow to her 
Grace and to nod in approbation of what she spoke to it." — Thos, Davies : Dra- 
matic Miscellanies. 

§ The sum Congreve left Mrs. Bracegirdle was 200/., as is said in the " Dramatic 
Miscellanies" of Tom Davies; where are some particulars about this charming 
actress and beautiful woman. 

She had a '• lively aspect," says Tom, on the authority of Cibber, and " such a 
glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as inspired everybody with 
desire." " Scarce an audience saw her that were not half of them her lovers." 

Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. " In Tamerlane, 
Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla, * * * ; Congreve insinuated 
his addresses in his Valentine to her x\ngelica, in ' Love for Love ; ' in his Osmyn to 
her Almena, in the ' Mourning Bride;' and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, 
in the ' Way of the World.' Mirabel, the fine gentleman of the play, is, I believe, not 
very distant from the real character of Congreve." — Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. iii. 
1784. 

She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the public favorite. 
She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. 

II Johnson calls his legacy the " accumulation of attentive parsimony, which,'' he 
continues, " though to her (the Duchess) superfluous and useless, might have given 
great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by the 
imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress,"— Z-iz/ifJ of the Poets, 



4o5 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

How can 1 introduce to you that merry and shameless 
Comic Muse who won him such a reputation ? Nell Gwynn's 
servant fought the other footman for having called his mistress 
a bad name ; and in like manner, and with pretty like epithets, 
Jeremy Collier attacked that godless, reckless Jezebel, the 
English comedy of his time, and called her what Nell Gwynn's 
man's fellow-servants called Nell Gwynn's man's mistress. 
The servants of the theatre, Dryden, Congreve,* and others, 
defended themselves with the same success, and for the same 
cause which set Nell's lackey fighting. She was a disreputable, 
daring, laughing, painted French baggage, that Comic Muse. 
She came over from the Continent with Charles (who chose 
many more of his female friends there) at the Restoration — a 
wild, dishevelled Lais, with eyes bright with wit and wine — a 
saucy court-favorite that sat at the king's knees, and laughed 
in his face, and when she showed her bold cheeks at her 
chariot-window, had some of the noblest and most famous 
people of the land bowing round her wheel. She was kind 
and popular enough, that daring Comedy, that audacious poor 
Nell : she was gay and generous, kind, frank, as such people 
can afford to be : and the men who lived with her and laughed 
with her, took her pay and drank her wine, turned out when 
the Puritans hooted her, to fight and defend her. But the jade 
was indefensible, and it is pretty certain her servants knew it. 

There is life and death going on in everything : truth and 
lies always at battle. Pleasure is always warring against self- 
restraint. Doubt is always crying Psha ! and sneering. A man 
in life, a humorist, in writing about life, sways over to one 
principle or the other, and laughs with the reverence for right 
and the love of truth in his heart, or laughs at these from the 
other side. Didn't I tell you that dancing was a serious busi- 

* IIo replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called '■ Amendments of Mr. Collier's 
False and huperfect Citations/' &c. A specimen or two are subjoined : — 

" The greater part of these examples which he has produced are only demonstra- 
tions of his own impurity : they only savor of his, utterance, and were sweet enough 
till tainted by his breath. 

" Where the expression is unblamable in its own pure and genuine signification, 
he enters into it, himself, like the evil spirit ; he possesses the innocent phrase, and 
makes it bellow forth his own blasphemies. 

" If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is because I am not very 
well versed in his nomenclatures. * * * I -will only call him Mr. Collier, and that 
I will call him as often as I think he shall deserve it. 

'• The corruption of a rott?n divine is the generation of a sour critic."' 

'• Congreve," says Dr. Johnson, "a very young man, elated with success, and impa- 
tient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and security. * * *- The dispute was 
protracted through ten years ; but at last Comedy grcv/ more modest, and Collier 
lived to see the reward of his labors in the reformation of the theatre." — Life oj 
Congreve. 



CONG RE VE AND ADDISON. 407 

ness to Harlequin ? I have read two or three of Congreve's 
plays over before speaking of him ; and my feelings were 
rather like those, which I dare say most of us here have had, 
at Pompeii, looking at Sallust's house and the relics of an orgy: 
a dried wine-jar or two, a charred supper-table, the breast of a 
dancing-girl pressed against the ashes, the laughing skull of a 
jester : a perfect stillness round about, as the cicerone twangs 
his moral, and the blue sky shines calmly over tlie ruin. The 
Congreve Muse is dead, and her song choked in Time's ashes. 
We gaze at the skeleton, and wonder at the life which once 
rev'elled in its mad veins. We take the skull up, and muse 
over the frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, passion, hope, desire, 
with which that empty bowl once fermented. We think of the 
glances that allured, the tears that melted, of the bright eyes 
that shone in those vacant sockets; and of lips whispering love, 
and cheeks dimpling with smiles, that once covered yon ghast- 
ly yellow framework. They used to call those teeth pearls 
once. See ! there's the cup she drank from, the gold chain 
she wore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her 
cheeks, her looking-glass, and the harp she used to dance to. 
Instead of a feast we find a gravestone, and in place of a mis- 
tress a few bones ! 

Reading in these plays now is like shutting your ears and 
looking at people dancing. What does it mean ? the measures, 
the grimaces, the bowing, shuffling and retreating, the cavalier 
seul advancing upon those ladies — those ladies and men twirl- 
ing round at the end in a mad galop, after which everybody 
bows and the quaint rite is celebrated. Without the music we 
can't understand that comic dance of the last century — its 
strange gravity and gayety, its decorum or its indecorum. It 
has a jargon of its own quite unlike life ; a sort of moral of its 
• own quite unlike life too. I'm afraid it's a Heathen mystery, 
symbolizing a Pagan doctrine ; protesting — as the Pompeia^s 
very likely were, assembled at their theatre and laughing at 
their games ; as Sallust and his friends, and their mistresses, 
protested, crowned with flowers, with cups in their hands — 
against the new, hard, ascetic, pleasure-hating doctrine whose 
gaunt disciples, lately passed over from the Asian shores of the 
Mediterranean, were for breaking the fair images of Venus and 
flinging the altars of Bacchus down. 

I fancy poor Congreve's theatre is a temple of Pagan de- 
lights, and mysteries not permitted except among heathens. I 
fear the theatre carries down that ancient tradition and wor- 
ship, as masons have carried their secret signs and ritss from 



4o8 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

temple to temple. When the libertine hero carries off the 
beauty in the play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn for 
having the young wife : in the ballad, when the poet bids his 
mistress to gather roses while she may, and warns her that old 
Time is still a-fiying : in the ballet, when honest Corydon 
courts Phillis under the treillage of the pasteboard cottage, 
and leers at her over the head of grandpapa in red stockings, 
who is oppo^unely asleep ; and when seduced by the invita- 
tions of the rosy youth she comes forward to the footlights, and 
they perform on each other's tiptoes that pas which you all 
know, and which is only interrupted by old grand|!)apa awaking 
from his doze at the pasteboard chrdet, (whither he returns to 
take another nap in case the young people get an encore) : 
when Harlequin, splendid in youth, strength, and agility, 
arrayed in gold and a thousand colors, springs over the heads 
of countless perils, leaps down the throat of bewildered giants, 
and, dauntless and splendid, dances danger down : when Mr. 
Punch, that godless old rebel, breaks every law and laughs at 
it with odious triumph, outwits his lawyer, bullies the beadle, 
knocks his wife about the head, and hangs the hangman — don't 
you see in the comedy, in the song, in the dance, in the ragged 
little Punch's puppet-show — the Pagan protest ? Doesn't it 
seem as if Life puts in its plea and sings its comment? Look 
how the lovers walk and hold each other's hands and whisper ! 
Sings the chorus — " There is nothing like love, there is nothing 
like youth, there is nothing like beauty of your spring-time. 
Look ! how old age tries to meddle \vith merry sport ! Beat 
him with his own crutch, the wrinkled old dotard ! There is 
nothing like beauty, there is nothing like strength. Strength 
and valor win beauty and youth. Be brave and conquer. Be 
young and happy. Enjoy, enjo)', enjoy ! Would you know the 
Segreto per esser felice 'i LI ere it is in a smiling mistress and a 
cup of Falernian." As the boy tosses the cup and sings his 
song — hark ! what is that chaunt coming nearer and nearer ? 
What is that dirge which will disturb us ? The lights of the 
festival burn dim — the cheeks turn pale — the voice quavers — 
and the cup drops on the floor. Who's there ? Death and 
Fate are at the gate, and they will come in. 

Congreve's comic feast flares with lights, and round the 
table, emptying their flaming bowls of drink, and exchanging 
the wildest jests and ribaldry, sit men and women, waited on 
by rascally valets and attendants as dissolute as their mistresses 
— perhaps the very worst company in the world. Thete doesn't 
seem to be a pretence of morals. At the head of the table sits 



CONGREVK AND ADDISOX. 409 

Mirabel or Belniour (dressed in the French fashion and waited 
on by English imitators of Scapin and Frontin). Their calling 
is to be irresistible, and to conquer everywhere. Like the heroes 
of the chivalry story, whose long-winded loves and combats 
they were sending out of fashion, they are always splendid and 
triumphant — overcome all dangers, vanquish all enemies, and 
win the beauty at the end. Fathers, husbands, usurers are the 
foes these champions contend vrX\\. They are merciless in old 
age, invariably, and an old man plays the part in the dramas 
which the wicked enchanter or the great blundering giant per- 
forms in the chivalry tales, who threatens and grumbles and 
resists — a huge stupid obstacle always overcome by the knight. 
It is an old man with a money-box : Sir Belmour his son or 
nephew spends his money and laughs at him. It is an old man 
with a young wife whom he locks up : Sir Mirabel robs him of 
his wife, trips up his gouty old heels and leaves the old hunks. 
The old fool, what business has he to hoard his money, or to 
lock up blushing eighteen ? Money is for youth, love is for 
youth, away with the old people. When Millamant is sixty, 
having of course divorced the first Lady Millamant, and 
married his friend Doricourt's granddaughter out of the nurs- 
ery — it will be his turn ; and young Belmour will make a fool 
of him. All this pretty morality you have in the comedies of 
William Congreve, Esq. They are full of wit. Such manners 
as he observes, he observes with great humor ; but ah ! it's a 
weary feast, that banquet of wit where no love is. It palls very 
soon ; sad indigestions follow it and lonely blank headaches in 
the morning. 

I can't pretend to quote scenes from the splendid Con- 
greve's plays* — which are undeniably bright, witty, and daring 

* The scene of Valentine's pretended madness in " Love for Love" is a splendid 
specimen of Congreve' s daring manner : — 

" Scandal. — And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon him ? 

'■'■yeretny. — Yes, Sir ; he says he'll favor it, and mistake her for Angelica. 

" Scandal. — It may make us sport. 

" Fo7-esiglit. — Mercy on us ! 

" Valentine. — Husht — interrupt me not — I'll vi^hisper predictions to thee, and thoir 
slialt prophesie ; — I am truth, and can teach thy tongue a new trick, — I have told thecs 
what's passed — now I'll tell what's to come : — Dost thou know what will happen to- 
morrow ? Answer me not — for 1 will tell thee. To-morrow knaves will thrive thro' 
craft, and fools thro' fortune ; and honesty will go as it did frostnipt in a summer 
suit. Ask me questions concerning to-morrow. 

" Scandal. — Ask him, Mr. Foresight. 

" Foresight. — Pray what will be done at Court.-' 

" Valcntijic. — Scandal \\'\\\ tell you ; — I am truth, I never come there. 

" Foresight, — In the city.? 

*' Valentine. — Oh, prayers will bs-said in empty churches at the usual hours. Yet 
you will sec such zealous faces behind counters as if religion were to be sold -in every 



4 1 o ENGL rSH HUMOR JS TS. 

— any more than I could ask you to hear the dialogue of a 
witty bargeman and a brilliant fishwoman exchanging compli- 

shop. Oh, things will go methodically in tlie city, the clocks will strike twelve at 
noon, and the honiM herd buzz in the Exchange at two. Husbands and wives wi]l 
drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the family. Ccffec- 
houscs will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the crept 'prentice that sweeps his 
master's shop in the morning, may, ten to one, dirty his sheets before night. But 
there are two things, that you will see very strange ; which are v.-anton wives with 
their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their necks. But hold, I 
must examine you before I go further; you look suspiciously. Arc you a husband? 

^^ Foresight. — I am married. 

" Valciitinc. — Poor creature ! Is your wife of Covent-garden Parish ? 

" Foresight. — No ; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. 

" Valentine, — Alas, poor man ! his eyes are sunk, and his hands shrivelled ; his 
legs dwindled, and his back bow'd. Pray, pray for a metamorpliosis — change thy 
shape, and shake off age; get thee Medea's kettle and be boiled anew ; come forth 
with hb'ring callous hands, and chine of steel, and Atlas' shoulders. Let Taliacotius 
trim the calves of twenty chairmen, and make thee pedestals to stand erect upon, and 
look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha ! That a man should have a stomach to a 
wedding-supper, when the pidgeons ought rather to be laid to his feet. Ha, ha, ha ! . 

" Foresight. — His frenzy is very high now, Mr. Scandal. 

'• Scandal. — I believe it is a spring-tide. 

" Foresight. — Very likely — truly ; you understand these matters. Mr. Scandal., 
I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things he has uttered. His sayings 
are very mysterious and hieroglyphical. 

" Valentine. — Oh ! why would Angelica be absent from my eyes so long ? 

" Jeremy. — She's here, Sir. 

'' Mrs. Foresight. — Now, Sister! 

" Mrs. Frail. — O Lord ! what must I say 

" Scandal. Humor him, Madam, by all means. 

" Valentiiu\ — Where is she ? Oh ! I see her : she comes, like Riches, Health, and 
Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and abandoned wretch. Oh— welcome, 
welcome ! 

" Mrs. Frail. — How d'ye, Sir ? Can I serve you ? 

" Valentine. — Hark'ee — I have a secret to tell you. Endymion and the moon 
shall meet us on Mount Latmos, and we'll be married in the dead of night. But say 
not a word. Hymen shall put his torch into a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret ; 
and Juno shall give her peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail ; and 
Argus's hundred eyes be shut — ha ! Nobody shall know, but Jera)iy. 

" Mrs. Frail. — No, no , we'll keep it secret ; it shall be done presentl}-. 

" Valentine. — The sooner the better. Jeremy., come hither — closer — that none 
may overhear us. Jeremy., I can tell you news : Angelica is turned mm, and I am 
turning friar, and yet we'll marry one another in spite of the Pope. Get me a cowl 
and beads, that I may play my part ; for she'll meet me two hours hence in black and 
white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we won't sec one another's faces 'till 
we have done something to be ashamed of, and then we'll blush once for all. * * * 
" Enter Tattle. 

" Tattle. — Do you know me, Valentine ? 

'• Valentine. — You ! — who are you ? No, I hope not. 

" Tattle. — I am Jack Tattle., your friend. 

^'Valentine. — My friend! What to do? I am no married man, and thou canst 
n ;t lye with my wife ; I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow money of me 
Then, what employment have I for a friend ? 

" Tattle. — iHah ! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a secret 

" A)igelica. — Do you know me, ValentiJic ? 

" Valentine. — Oh, very well. 

" Angelica. — Who am I ? 

" Valentine. — You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it grafted 
roses on a brier. You are the reflection cf Heaven in a pond ; and he that leaps at 



CONGREVE AND ADDISOr<r. ^j I 

ments at Billingsgate j but some of his verses — they were 
amongst the most famous lyrics of the time, and pronounced 
equal to Horace by his contemporaries — may give an idea of his 
power, of his grace, of his daring manner, his magnificence in 
compliment, and his polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was 

you is sunk. You are all white — a sheet of spotless paper — when you first are borr ; 
but you are to be scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill. I know you ; for i 
loved a woman, and loved her so long that I found out a strange thing : I found out 
what a woman was good for. 

" Tatilc. — Ay ! pr'ythee, what's that? 

" Valentiiu. — Why, to keep a secret. 

" Tattle.— O Lord"! 

" Valentine. — Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for, though she should tell, 
yet she is not to be believed. 

" Tattle. — Hah ! Good again, faith. 

" Valentine. — I would have musick. Sing me the song that I like." — Congreve : 
Love for Love. 

There is a Mrs. Nickleby, of the year 1700, in Congreve's Comedy of '• The 
Double Dealer,'' in whose character the author introduces some v/onderful traits of 
roguish satire. She is practised on by the gallants of the play, and no more knows 
how to resist them than any of the ladies above quoted could resist Congreve. 

. " Lady Plyant. — Oh ! reflect upon the horror of your conduct ! Offering to per- 
vert mc " [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing the lady for her daughter's hand, 
not for her own] — " perverting ms from the road of virtue, in which I have trod thus 
long, and never made one trip — not ont faux fas. Oh, consider it : what would you 
have to answer for, if you should provoke me to frailty ! Alas ! humanity is feeble, 
heaven knows ! Very feeble, and unable to support itself. 

" Mcllcfont. — Where am I ? Is it day ? and am I awake ? Madam 

'■'■Lady Plyant. — O Lord, ask me the questiem ! I'll swear I'll deny it — therefore 
don't ask me; nay, you sha'n't ask me, I swear I'll deny it. O Gemini, you have 
brought all the blood into my face ; I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cock. O fie, 
cousin Mellefont ! 
, " Mellefont. — Nay, Madam, hear me ; I mean 

'' Lady Plyant. — Hear you ? No, no ; I'll deny you first, and hear you after- 
wards. For one does not know how one's mind may change upon hearing — hearing 
is one of the senses, and all the senses are fallible. I won't trust my honor, I assure 
you ; my honor is infallible and uncomatable. 

" Mellefont. — For heaven's sake, Madam 

" Lady Plyant. — Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of heaven, 
and have so much wickedness in your heart .' May be, you don't think it a sin. They 
say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin ; but still, my honor, if it were no 
sin But, then, to marry my daughter for the convenience of frequent oppor- 
tunities—I'll never consent to that : as sure as can be, I'll break the match. ' 

" Mellefont.— V)tzX\\ and amazement ! Madam, upon my knees 

" Lady Plyant. — Nay, nay, rise up ! come, you shall see my good-nature. I 
know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 'Tis not your fault ; nor I 
swear, it is not mine. How can I help it, if I have charms ? And how can you help 
it, if you are made a captive ? I swear it is pity it should be a fault ; but, my honor. 
Well, Ixit your honor, too— but the sin ! Well, but tJie necessity. O Lord, here's 
somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of your cnme ; and 
strive as much as can be against it— strive, be sure ; but don't be melanchohck— don t 
despair ; but never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no ; but be sure you 
lay aside all thoughts of the marriage, for though 1 know you don't love Cynthia, only 
as a blind to your passion for mc— yet it will make mc jealous. O Lord, whr.t did I 
say? Jealous! No, no, I can't be jealous; for I must not love you. Thereioie, 
don't hope; but don't despair neither. Oh, they're coming; I must fly."— T/i^ 
Double Dealer : Act 2, sc v. page 156. 



4 1 2 ENGLISH HUM ORIS TS. 

SO accustomed lo conquer, that he has a poor opmion of his 
victims. Nothing's new except their faces, says he : " every 
woman is the same." He says this in his first comedy, which he 
wrote languidly * in illness, when he was an "excellent young 
man." Richelieu al eighty could have hardly said a more ex- 
cellent thing. 

When he advances to make one of his conquests, it is with 
a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles playing, 
like Grammont's French dandies attacking the breach of 
Lerida. 

" Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady 
at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent 
compliment — 

*' Cease, cease to ask her name, 
The crowned Muse's noblest theme, 
Whose glory by immortal fame 

Shall only sounded be. 
But if you long to know, 
Then look round yonder dazzling row! 
Who most does like an angel show, 

You may be sure 'tis she." 

Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not so 
well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating her — 

'' When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, 
With eyes so bright and with that awful air, 
I thouglit my heart wiiich durst so higli aspire 
.A.S bold as his who snatched celestial fire. 
But soon as e'er ihe beauteous idiot spoke, 

Forlli from her coral lips such folly broke : * 

Like balni the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound, 
And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound." 

Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the 
poet does not seem to respect one much more than the other \ 
and describes both with exquisite satirical humor — 

" Fair Amoret is gone astray : 

Pursue and seek her every lover. 
rU tell the signs by which you may 
The wandering shepherdess discover. 

Coquet and coy at once her air, 

Both studied, though both seem neglected ; 

Careless she is with artful care, 
Affecting to seem unaffected. 

* " There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done 
everything by chanco. The ' Old Bachelor ' was written for amusement in the languor 
of 'convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue 
and incessant ambition of wit,"— Johnson : Lives cf the Poets. 



CON(rN£rJ-: A.\D ADDISON. 415 

With skill her eyes dart every glance, 

Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect ^hen 

For she'd persuade they wound by chance, 
Though certain aim and art direct them. 

She likes herself, yet others hates 

For that which in herself she prizes ; 
And, while slic laughs at them, forgets 

She is the thing that she despises," 

What could Amoret have done to bring down such shafts ot 
ridicule upon her ? Could she have resisted the irresistible Hi, 
Congreve ? Could anybodv ? Could Sabina, when she woke 
and heard such a bard singing under her window ? " See " he 
writes — 

" See ! see, she wakes— Sabina wakes 

And now the sun begins to rise ? 
Less glorious is the morn, that breaks 

From his bright beams, than her fair eyes. 
\A'ith light united, day they give ; 

But different fates ere night fulfil : 
How many by his warmth will live ! 

How many will her coldness kill ! "' 

\re you melted? Don't you think him a divine man? 
If not touched by the brilliant Sabina, hear the devout 
Belinda : — 

" Pious Selinda goes to prayers, 

If I but ask the favor ; 
And vet the tender fool's in tears. 

When she believes I'll leave her_: 
Would I were free from this restraint, 

Or else had hopes to win her ; 
Would she could make of me a saint, 

Or I of her a sinner!'' 

What a conquering air there is about these ! What an irre- 
sistible Mr. Congreve it is r Sinner! of course he aviII be a 
sinner the delightful rascal ! Win her ! of course he will wm 
her the victorious rogue ! He knows he will : he must--with 
such a grace, with such a fashion, with such a splendid em- 
broidered suit. You see him with red-heeled shoes de iciously 
turned out, passing a fair jewelled hand through his dishevel ed 
periwig, and delivering a killing ogle along with his seen ed 
billet. And Sabina ? What a comparison that is between the 
nymph and the sun ! The sun gives Sabina the pas, and does 
not venture to rise before her ladyship : the morns ortght 
beams 2.xe less glorious than her fair eyes: but before night 
even'body will be frozen by her glances: everybody but one 
luckv rogue who shall be nameless. Louis Quatorze m aU his 



414. ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 






glory is hardly more splendid than our Phcebus Apollo 
the Mall and Spring Gardens.* 

When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the lattei 
rather affected to despise his literary reputation, and in thi: 
perhaps the great Congreve was not far wrong.f A touch o 
Steele's tenderness is worth all his finery ; a flash of Swift' 
lightning, a beam of Addison's pure sunshine, and his tawdr) 
playhouse taper is invisible. But the ladies loved him, and h( 
was undoubtedly a pretty fellow. $ 

* " Among those by whom it (' Will's ') was frequented, Southerne and Congreve 
were pnncipally distinguished by Dryden's friendship, * * * But Congrevi 
seems to have gained yet farther tlian Southerne upon Dryden's friendship. He wa' 
introduced to him by his first play, the celebrated ' Old Bachelor ' being put into thi 
poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations to fit it for the 
stage, returned it to the author with the high and just ccmmendaticn, that it \sz 
the best first play he liad ever seen."— Scott's Dryden, vol. i. p. 370. 

t It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that Voltaire visitec 
him, in the decline of his life. ; 

The anecdote relating to his s.iying that he wished "to bi visited on no othef 
footing than as a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity," is common to 
all writers on the subject of Congreve, and appears in the English version of Vol- 
taire's " Letters concerning the English Nation," published in London, 17-^^, as also 
in Goldsmith's " Memoir cf Voltaire." But it is worthv of remark, that it \loes not 
appear in the text of the same Letters in the edition of Voltaire's '-GEuvres CoiUi 
plfetes " in the '• Pantheon Literaire." Vol. v. of his works, (Paris, 1837.) 

" Celui de tons les Anglais qui \ porte Je plus loin la gloire du theatre comiqu^ 
est feu M. Congreve. II n'a fait que pen de pieces, maistoutes sont excellentes dana 
leur genre. * * * Vous y voyez pat tout le langage des honnetes gens avec des 
actions de fripon ; ce qui prouve qu'il connaissait bi'en son monde, et qu'il vivai^ 
dans ce qu'on appelle la bonne comi^agnie."— Voltaire : Lettrcs sur ^es Anglais, 
Let. ig. 

X On the death of Queen Mary he publislied a Pastoral—" The Mourning Muse, 
of Alexis." Alexis and Menalcas sing alternately in the orthodox way. The Queen 
is called Pastora. 

" I mourn Pastora dead, let Albion mourn. 
And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn," 

says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that — 

" With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound, 
And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground 

(a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that period) < >♦ » 
continues- 

" Lord of these woods and wide extended plains, 
Stretch'd on the ground and close to eartli his face, 
Scalding with tears the already faded grass. 
* * * ' * 

To dust must all that Heavenly beauty come ? 
And must Pastora moulder in the tomb ? 
All Death ! more fierce and unrelenting far 
Than wildest wolves and savage tigers are ; 
V/ith lambs and sheep their hungers are appeased, 
But ravenous Death the shepherdess has jiesred." 

This statement that a wolf cats but a sheep, whilst Death eats a shapherdess— fhat 



CONOR EVE AA'D ADDISON. 415 

We have seen in Swift a humorous philosopher, whose 
ruth frightens one, and whose laughter makes one melancholy. 
Ve have had in Congreve a humorous observer of another 
chool, to whom the world seems to have no moral at all, and 
^'hose 'ghastly doctrine seems to be that we should eat, drink, 
.iid be merry when we can, and go to the deuce (if there be a 
leuce) when the time comes. We come now to a humor that 
lows from quite a different heart and spirit — a wit that makes 
IS laugh and leaves us good and happy ; to one of the kindest 

-are of the " Great Shepherd " lying speecliless on his stomach in a state of despair 
vhich neither winds nor floods nor air can exhibit-are to be remembered m 
)oetry surely : and this style was admired in its tune by the admirers ot the great 

'°"'^In\Ve '' Tears of AmaryUis for Amyntas " (the young Lord Blandf ord , the great 
Duke of Marlborough's only son), Amaryllis represents Sarah Duchess ! ^ 

The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, come into wo?-,c heie 
again, A^t the sight of her grief— 

" Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forego, 
And dumb distress and new compassion show, 
Nature herself attentive silence kept. 
And motion sce7ned suspended ivhile she tuep ! ' 

And Pope dedicated the " Iliad" to the author of these lines-and Dryden wrote ^o 
pirn in his great hand : 

" Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, 
■ But genius must be born and never can be taught. 

This is your portion, this your native store ; 
Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, _ 

To Shakspeare gave as much she could not give him more. 

Maintain your Post : that's all the fame you need, 
For 'tis impossible you should proceed ; 
Already I am worn with cares and age. 
And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage : 
Unprofrtably kept at Heaven's expense, 
I live a Rent-charge upon Providence : 
But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn 
Whom I foresee to better fortune born. 
Be kind to my remains, and oh ! defend 
Against your Judgment your departed Friend ! 
Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue ; 
But shade those Lawrels wliich descend to You : 
And take for Tribute what these Lines express ; 
You merit more, nor could my Love do less." 

This IS a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day. In Shadwell, 
lliggons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their time, when gentlemen meet 
thev fall into each other's arms, with "Jack, Jack, 1 must buss thee; or, l^ore 
George, Harry, 1 must kiss thee, lad." And in a similar manner the poets saluted 
tluir' bretliren. Literary gentlemen do not kiss now ; I wonder if they love each 

""^ 'steete^calls Congreve "Great Sir " and " Great Author ;" says "Well-dressed 
barbarians knew his awful name," and addresses him as if he were a prince ; anc« 
speaks of " Pastora " as one ®f the most famous tragic compositions. 



4 1 6 ENGLISH HUM ORIS IS. 

benefactors that society has ever had ; and I believe that yod 
liave divined already that I am about to mention Addison's 
honored name. 

From reading over his writings, and the biographies which 
we have of him, amongst which the famous article in tlie 
EditibiirglL BevUw'^ vc\d.yhQ cited as a magnificent statue of 
the great writer and moralist of the last age, raised by the love 
and the marvellous skill and genius of one of the most illus- 
trious artists oi our own ; looking at that calm, fair face, and 
clear countenance — those chiselled features pure and cold, I 
cau't but fancy that this great man — in this respect like him of 
whom we spoke in the last lecture — was also one of the lonely 
ones of the world. Such men have very few equals, and they 
don't herd with those. It is in the nature of such lords of iii- 
tellect to be solitary — they are in the world but not of it ; and 
our minor struggles, brawls, successes, pass under them. 

Kind, just, serene, impartial, his fortitude not tried beyond 
easy endurance, his affections not much used, for his books 
were his family and Lis society was in public ; admirably wiser, 
wittier, calmer, and more instructed than almost every man 
with whom he met, how could Addison suffer, desire, admire, 
feel much ? I may expect a child to admire me for being taller 
or writing more cleverly than she ; but how can I ask m}' 
superior to say that I am a wonder when he knows better than 
I ? In Addison's days you could scarcely show him a literary 
performance, a sermon or a poem, or a piece of literary criti- 
cism, but he felt he could do better. His justice must have 
made him indifferent. He didn't praise, because he measured 
his compeers by a higher standard than common people have.f 
How was he who was so tall to look up to any but the loftiest 
genius 1 He must have stooped to put himself on a level with 

* " To Addison himself we are bound bv a sentiment as much like affection as 
any sentiment can be which is inspired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and 
twenty years \\\ Westminster Abbey. * * * After full inquiry and impartial 
reflection we have long been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as 
can^justly be claimed by any of our infirm and erring race."— Macaulay. 

'• Many who praise virtue do no more than praise it. Yet it is reasonable to 
believe that Addison's profession and' practice were at no great variance; since, 
amidst that storm of faction in which most of his life was passed, though his station 
made him conspicuous, and his activity made him formidable, the character given 
him by his friends was never contradicted by his enemies. Of those with wliom 
interest or opinion united him, he had not only the esteem but the kindness ; and of 
others, whom the violence of opposition drove against him, though he might lose the 
love, he retained the reverence.''— Johnson, 

t ''Addison was perfect good company with intimates, and had something more 
charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man ; but with any mix- 
ture of strangers, and sometimes only with one, he seemed to preserve his dignitv much, 
With a stifi sort of silenee."— Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 



CO.VGREVE AXD ADDISON. 417 

St men. By that profusion of graciousness and smiles with 
ich Goethe or Scott, for instance, greeted ahnost every liter- 
' beginner, every small literary adventurer who came to his 
irt and went away charmed frpm the great king's audience, 
:l cuddling to his heart the compliment which his literary 
jesty had paid him — each of the tw-o good-natured poten- 
es of letters brought their star and ribbon into discredit, 
erybody had his majesty's orders. Everybody had his majes- 

cheap portrait, on a box surrounded with diamonds vvorth 
Dpence apiece. A very great and just and wise man ought not 
praise indiscriminately, but give his idea of the truth. Addi- 
i praises the ingenious Mr. Pinktheman : Addison praises 
; ingenious Mr. Dogget, the actor, whose benefit is coming 

that night : Addison praises Don Saltero : Addison praises 
Iton with all his heart, bends his knee and frankly pays 
mage to that imperial genius.* But between those degrees 

men his praise is very scanty. I don't think the great Mr. 
Idison liked young Mr. Pope, the Papist, much ; I don't 
nk he abused him. But when Mr. Addison's men abused 
:. Pope, I don't think Addison took his pipe out of his mouth 
contradict them.f 

Addison's father was a clergyman of good repute in Wilt- 
Te, and rose in the church. $ His famous son never lost his 
rical training and scholastic gravity, and was called " a par- 
1 in a tye-wig " § in London afterwards at a time when tye- 

1^ " Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excellence, lies in the sub- 

ty of his thoughts. There are others of the moderns, who rival him in every other 

t of poetry ; but in the greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, 

1 modern and ancient, Homer only excepted. It is impossible for the imagination 

nan to distend itself with greater ideas than those which he has laid together in his 

t, second, and sixth books." — Spectator^ No. 279. 

" If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these arts of working on 

imagination, I rhink Milton may pass for one." — Ibid. No. 417. 

These famous papers appeared in each Saturday's 6)><?rf«2f(Pr, from January 19th 

Vlay 3d, 1712. Beside his services to Milton, we may place those he did to Sacred 

sic. 

t " Addison was very kind to me at first, but my bitter enemy afterwards." — Pope. 

'nee' s Anecdotes. 

'' ' Leave him as soon as you can,' said Addison to me, speaking of Pope ; ' he will 

:ainly play you seme devilish trick else ; he has an appetite to satire.'" — Lady 

)RTLEY Montagu. Spencc's Anecdotes. 

X "Lancelot Addison, his father, was the 5on of another Lancelot Addison, a 

gyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of Lichfield and Archdeacon of Cov- 

rv. 

' The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his company, 
fared, that he was ' a parson in a tye-wig,' can detract little from his character. He 
i always reserved to strangers^ and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a char. 
;r like that of Mandeville." — Johnson. Lives of the Poets. 

"Old Tacob Tonson did not 'like Mr. Addison; ]\e had a quarrel with him, and, 
ir his quitting the secretaryship, used frequently to say of him — ' One day or othei 

27 



4 1 8 ENGLISH HUMOR IS TS. 

wigs were only worn by the lait}^ and the fathers of theolog 
did not think it decent to appear except in a full bottorr 
Having been at school at Salisbury, and the Charterhouse, ii 
1687, when he Avas fifteen years old, he went to Queen's Coj 
lege, Oxford, where he speedily began to distinguish himsel 
by the making of Latin verses. The beautiful and fancifu 
poem of "The Pygmies and the Cranes," is still read by lover 
of that sort of exercise ; and verses are extant in honor 
King William, by which it appears that it was the loyal youth' 
custom to toast that sovereign in bumpers of purple Lya^us 
many more works are in the Collection, including one on th< 
Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, which was so good that Montagm 
got him a pension of 300/. a year, on which Addison set out 01 
his travels. 

During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had deeply imbuec 
himself with the Latin poetical literature, and had these poet 
at his fingers' ends when he travelled in Italy.* His patroi- 
went out of office, and his pension was unpaid: and hearin|i 
that this great scholar, now eminent and known to the literal 
of Europe (the great Boileau,t upon perusal of Mr. Addison'; 
elegant hexameters, was first made aware that England was no. 
altogether a barbarous nation) — hearing that the celebratec 
Mr. Addison, of Oxford, proposed to travel as governor to j 
young gentleman on the grand tour, the great Duke of Somer 
set proposed to Mr. Addison to accompany his son, Lore 
Hartford. 

Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his Grace, anc 
his lordship his Grace's son, and expressed himself ready to sei 
forth. 

His Grace the Duke of Somerset now announced to one ol 
the most famous scholars of Oxford and Europe that it was his 
gracious intention to allow my Lord Plartford's tutor one hun- 

yoirll SC3 that man a bishop— I'm sure he looks that way ; and indeed I ever thou<r: 
him a priest m his heart.' "— Pope. S^encc's Ajiccdoics. 

•■ Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as betw^^, 
two r.n J three in the height of summer, and lie abed till between eleven and twelve ir 
t.i ^ cl :pth of winter. He was untalkative whilst here, and often thoughtful : sometimes 
so lost in thought, that I have come into his room and stayed five minutes there bi 
or} n^ has known anything of it. He had his masters generally at supper wi 
lur.i ; kept very little company beside ; and had no amour that I know of ; and I thi 
1 should have known it if he had had any.'— .\bbe Philippeaux of Blo 
opiiue^s Anecdotes. 

* '• His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Clai 
d]a;| and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound."— Macaulay. 

I ;• OiH- country owes it to him, that the famous Monsieur Boileau first conceiv( 
an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perusing the present he made him 
tiie Musae Anghcanae.' "— .Tickell : Preface to Addisan's Worku 



CONOR EVE AND ADDISON. 



419 



Irecl guineas per annum. Mr. Addison wrote back that liis 
>ervices were his Grace's, but he by no means found his account 
n the recompense for tliem. The negotiation was broken off. 
They parted with a profusion of congees on one side and the 
)ther. 

Addison remained abroad for some time, living in the bcot 
vociety of Europe. How could he do otherwise ? He mu3t 
lave been one of the finest gentlemen the world ever saw : at 
ill moments of life serene and courteous, cheerful and calm.'"' 
He could scarcely ever have had a degrading thought. He 
night have omitted a virtue or two, or many, but could not 
lave had many faults committed for which he need blush or 
turn pale. When warmed into confidence, his conversation 
appears to have been so delightful that the greatest wits sat 
rapt and charmed to listen to him. No man bore poverty and 
narrow fortune with a more lofty cheerfulness. His letters to 
his friends at this period of his life, when he had lost his Gov- 
ernment pension and given up his college chances, are full of 
courage and a gay confidence and philosophy : and they are 
none the worse in my eyes, and I hope not in those of his last 
and greatest biographer (though Mr. Macaulay is bound to own 
and lament a certain weakness for wine, which the great and 
good Joseph Addison notoriously possessed, in common with 
countless gentlemen of his time), because some of the letters 
are written when his honest hand was shaking a little in the 
morning after libations to purple Lyaeus over-night. He was 
fond of drinking the healths of his friends : he writes to Wyche,t 

* " It was my fate to be much with the wits ; my father was acquainted with all of 
ahem. Addisoji was the best company in the world. I never knew anybody that had 
so much wit as Congreve/'— Lady Wortley Montagu. Spcnce's Anecdotes. 

t '' Mr. Addison to Mr. Wyche 

^ Dear Sir, 

" My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, so th( properest 
use I can put it to is to thank yc honest gentlemen that set it a shaking. _ I have had 
this morning a desperate design in my head to attack you m verse, which I should 
certainly have done could 1 have found out a rhyme to rummer. But though you have 
escaped for ye present, you are not yet out of danger, if I can a little recover my 
talent at crambo. I am sure, in whatever way I write to you, it will be impossible tor 
me to express yc deep sense I have of ye many favors you have lately shown me. A 
shall only tell you that Hambourg has been the pleasantest stage I have met with in 
my travails. If any of my friends wonder at mc for living so long in that place, 1 dare 
say it will be thought a very good excuse when I tell him Mr. Wyche was there. As 
your companv made our stay at Hambourg agreeable, your wine has given iis all ye 
satisfaction that we have found in our journey through Westphalia. If drinking your 
health will do vou any good, you may expect to be as long-lived as Methuselah, or, to 
use a more familiar instance, as y" oldest hoc in ye cellar. I hope ye two pair ct legs 
that was left a swelling behind us are by this time coine to their shapes again. 1 can l 



420 ^ EA'GL/S/J- HUMORISTS. 

Of Hamburg, gratefully remembering Wyclie's '• hoc ' " I have' 
beeu drmkmg your health to-day with Sir Richard Shirley*! 
he writes o Bathurst, " I ha^.e lately had the honor to meei 
my Lord Effingham at Amsterdam, where we have drunk W' 
Woods health a hundred times in excellent champa"ne " hi 
vi"l leff'"- . Sw.ft* describes him over his cups, whcT ose^ 
y elded to a temptation which Jonathan resisted Joseph was 

hs blood "'rf'lf' '"' "'^'^'"' Pf^'^P^ ''-'^ fi^^ °f -^- to^tlrm 
lis blood. If he was a parson, he wore a tye-wi<r recollect A 

better and more Christian man scarcely^ver°'b,eat ed that 
Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wi, e- 

t^c:^ iraiedif™^ ' '-'' ''''' '■-' -' -■•'•^ 

snh;ll'""''7"""'f '■''"■' °^ •''S^' "^'= "i°st distinguished wit | 
H ,1^\^"f T:%"'^^"]^1^'^' ^"'h°« •-' profession and an income] 
His book of 1 ravels " had failed : his " Dialogues on Medals '1 
hadnadno particular success: his Latin verges evei tl outh 
reported the best since Virgil or Statius at any 'rate, hid ^ 

J"bdieve'°nt'!;i5i;'; "'* '"'^ """^ -■'-" '° >" ""-,. of „„n,. and desiring youi 

'' Dear vSir, 

- To Mr. Wyclio, His Majesty's Resident at Hambourc. " ^'°"'''" ^'^• 

" May, I70J."' "' 

-^^^om ^Ae L:/c' 0/ AMrsou, dy Mhs AiKiy. Vol i. n ,,6 

l.,is cvcninf ■ '^'"'~— ' ' *„ed togother at hi. lodgings, and I s't with him partot 

.a.:j^;r;'iv^^-S'-;-;..^^^Ma;M.Addi.„^ 

son, il;- ' °-""*' ^" °"'- ™"'P»"^ "ined a. Will Fra„°Ua.rfs wUh'sLc and Addi-' 

my n;„.t^^f!t;"Vrii;Ki!T:i,Tif'„fri,rrsit ? '"°f ';^=^"?f pf'-" ■ -■" 

persons a„d things."_/,«£„ my credit to set lum right in his notions o] 

rene'tf «ir3¥rk"l'r4ted's; v^fS'fe *?; '*""'>; "mniunications. Time 
-h..= memory his is so hono™ Sj com^ertod ^ "' " '''^'"^' '""" '''=' ™»" ""'•■ 

c..ncV.httanL";:;.e3-fi:rotsl/!!o;is zt» •.*'%"-' l>^>>-■'>-'^ 

the company for about a vear. but found it ?o„ m H ? ' '"'' '"*? "'= '"S'"' ' ™= ol 
1 riuitted it."-PoPE. S/.^,;',AneS^til "" ' '' '""'' '"^ '''^'*' ^"<1 « 



CONOREVE Ai\'D ADDISON. 42 t 

u-ht him a Government place, and Addison was living up 
"e shabby pair of stairs in the Haymarket (in a poverty over 
di old slmuel Johnson rather chuckles) when m tlese 
bbv rooms an emissary from Government and Fortune came 
I found Tim.* A poem was wanted about the Duke of Marl- 
ouTs victory of Blenheim. Would Mr. Addison wrue 
° "Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton, took back the 
Iv to tlie LoKl Treasurer Godolplnn, that Mr. Addison 
id When the poem had reached a certain stage, it was 
ed to Godolphin ; and the last lines which he read weie 



se :— 



'■^ But, O my Muse ! what numbers wilt thou find 
To sin'^ the furious troops in battle 30m d .-' 
Methinks 1 hear the drum's tumultuous sound 
The victor's shouts and dying groans confound ; 
The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, 
And all the thunder of the battle rise. 
-Iwas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, 

That; in the'shock of charging hosts unmoved, 
Amidst confusion, horror, and despair. 
Examined all the dreadful scenes of war : 
In peaceful thought the field of death surveved, 
To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, 
Inspired repulsed battalions to engage. 
And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 
So when an angel, bv divine command, 
With rising tempest shakes a guilty land 
( Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed), 
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast , 
A.nd, pleased the Almighty's orders tc perform. 
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm. 

Addison left off at a good moment. T'^' ^™"f,J"Yh°; 
unced to be of the greatest ever produced in poetr) ihat 
gd Uia? good anget flew off with Mr. Addison and laired 
n in the place of Co missioner of Appeals— vice Mr LocKe 
i:^^^ promoted. I" the following >^ar Mr. Addison 
Mit to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the year atter was 
ade'unde" Secretary of State. O angel visits Ij^u c^me 
ew and far between " to literary gentlemen s lodgings ! i our 
ngs seldom quiver at second-floor windows now 

You lau-h? You think it is in the power of few writers 
>«'adays t'-o call up such an angel? . Well, pe^^aps no ; but 
.rmit us to comfort ourselves by pointing out hat there are 

the poem of the "Campaign" f ™!= ^^ ^^f ''"f' ^-.eh ', 
in disire: and to hint that Mr. Addison did very wiselj n 

. .. When .,e returned to England (in ;7-).»■*^^^XU^«'-n^::'l! 
ve testimony of the difficulues ^ "'"* '^= ;^,t SfuHlSe 1" the cuhivaticn 
irons out of power, and was, therefore, .or a time, at tun 
■ ■ i inind."— JSHNSON : Lives of the fosts. 



42 2 EXGLI^IT I[[\-\IORISTS. 

not going further with my Lord Godolphiu than that angelic' 
simile. Do allow me, just for a little harmless mischief, 
read you some of the lines which follow. Flere is the intervic 
between the Duke and the King of the Romans after tl 
battle : — 

" Austria's yoiinc; monarch, whose imperial sway 
Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey, 
Vyiiose boasted ancestry so liigli extends 
That in the Pagan Gods his hneage ends, 
Comes from afar, in gratitude to own 
The great supporter of liis father's throne. 
What tides of glory to his bosom ran 
Clasped in t!r embraces of the godlike man ! 
How were his eyes with pleasing wonder lixt. 
To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt ! 
Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, 
So turned and finished for the camp or court ' " 



How many fourth-form boys at Mr. Addison's -school c 
Charterhouse could write as well as that now ? The " Can 
paign " has blunders, triumphant as it was ; and weak poini 
like all campaigns.* 

In the year 1713 "Cato" came out. Swift has left a d( 
scription of the first night of the performance. All the laurel 
of Europe were scarcely sufficient for the author of this pn 
digious poem.f Laudations of Whig and Tory chiefs, popula 

* " Mr. Addison wrote very fluently ; but he was sometimes very slow and scruoi 
lous in correcting. He would show his verses to several friends ; and would alti 
aimost eyerytmng that any of them hinted at as wrong. He seemed to be too diffide. 
ot inmsel ; and too much concerned about his character as a poet ; or (as he worde 
It) too solicitous for that kind of praise which, God knows, is but a very little matt< 
attor ail I — Popk. S^cncJs Anecdotes. ^ 

t "As to poetical affairs,'' says Pope, in 1713, " I am content at present to be 

bai. looker-on. * * * Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his days, ; 

e IS of Britain m ours : and though all the foolish industry possible has been used 

;™.l • '.'i^ ^ ^'f[ 7 play yet what the author once said of another mav the mo 

pioperly in t'ne world be applied to him on this occasion : 

'• ' Envy itself is dumb — in wonder lost ; 

And factions strive who shall applaud him most.' 
wm'^ irhoiln?.'?^ ^'^ '?^''"* '''l'l°^ "^^ ^^'"S party on the one side of the theat| 
V-iS^^^^l^^^^f^}''?f^'^'^ "^^ other; while the author sweated behind tJ 
t^l\ T\ T^^^ J? Jncl their applause proceeding more from the hand than the 
Ki V f.Hi.n » T T> r^ r\ ''^'■'^ ^'"^f ^ ^^^^- ^^^^^' ^'1 t^e applauses of the oppo- 

^nlti^n; ^ "^''^A^i^S^'^^" ''"* ^°^' I^o°th,who played Ca/., into the bix, 
? n iS^^^rr "' Tr^ l^'^ '^"•"?,'' "'. ^^knowledgment (as he expressed it) for de^ 

l',n \{^ 'r """'^ "^ ^'''"■^-'' '° '^'^^ ^Sainst a perpetual dictator. "-Pope's Letters fa 

^IK \V . i RUMBULL. •• 

andS5;^.?ES;o^:"''' nights without interruption. Pope wrote the Prolog. 
quotetfors%V-!i'^"^ how m^ny things in "Cato" keep their ground as habitu; 

" * * * big with the fate 
Of Cato and of Rome. " 

" 'Tis not in mortals to command success, 

But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it.-' 



CONG R EVE AND ADDISON. ^2^ 

.tions, complimentar}^ garlands from literary men, transla- 
is in all languages, delight and homage from all — save from 
m Dennis in a minority of one. Mr. Addison was called the 
;eat Mr. Addison" after this. The Coffee-house Senate 
:ated him Divus : it was heresy to question that decree. 
Meanwhile he was writing political papers and advancing in 

political profession. He went Secretary to Ireland. He 
3 appointed Secretary of State in 17 17. And letters of his 

extant, bearing date some year or two before, and written 
young Lord Warwick, in which he addresses him as " my 
irest lord," and asks affectionately about his studies, and 
tes very prettily about nightingales and birds'-nests which 
has found at Fulham for his lordship, lliose nightingales 
re intended to warble in the ear of Lord Warwick's mamma, 
dison married her ladyship in 17 16; and died at Holland 
)use three years after that splendid but dismal union.* 

" Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury." 

" I think the Romans call it Stoicism." 

" My voice is still for war.'' 

" When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, 
The post of honour is a private station." 



to mention — 



i the eternal- 



" The woman who deliberates is lost. 



" Plato, thou reasonest well,'' 
ch avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play ! 
^ '• Die lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like those on which 
urkish princess is espoused— to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, 
lughter, I give thee this man for thy slave,' The marriage, if uncontradicted report 
be credited, made no addition to his happiness ; it neither found them, nor made 
11, equal. * * * Rovve's ballad of ' The Despairing Shepherd ' is said to have 
h written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable pair."— Dr. John- 

'"' I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the 
1 surprise, in that I knew that post was almost offered to him before. At that tmie 
icclined it and 1 really believe thathe would have done well to have declined it now. 
•h a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, 
■ible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the day when he will be heartily 
d to resign them both."— Lady Wortley Montagu to Pope : Uor/:s, Lord 
'laj-ncliffe's edil., xo\.\\.^. Ill- • , -^ i 

fThe issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, who mhented, on 

mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, which her father had purchased. 
; was of weak intellect, and died, unmarried, at an advanced age. 
Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his courtship, lor his 
llection contains " Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on Mr. Addison's going to Ireland, 
vhich her ladvship is called " Chloc," and Joseph Addison ''Lycidas; besides 

ballad mentioned by the Doctor, and which is entitled Cohn s Complaint 
t not even the interest attached to the name of Addison could induce the reader to 
•use this composition, though one stanza may serve as a specimen :— 

" What though I have skill to complain- 
Though the Muses my temples have crowned j 



42 4 ENGLISH HUMOR IS TS. 

But it is not for his reputation as the great author of " Q,^ 
and the " Campaign," or for his merits as Secretary of Stat( 
for his rank and high distinction as my Lady Warwick's 
band, or for his eminence as an Examiner of political questi 
on the Whig side, or a Guardian of British liberties, thati 
admire Joseph Addison. It is as a Tatler of small talk ahi 
Spectator of mankind, that we cherish and love him, and 
as much pleasure to him as to any human being that ever w 
He came in that artificial age, and began to speak witlif 
noble, natural voice. He came, the gentle satirist, who hit 
unfair blow ; the kind judge w"ho castigated only in smili 
While Swift went about, hanging and ruthless — a lite^ 
Jeffreys — in Addison's kind court only minor cases were trij 
only peccadilloes and small sins against society : only a danj 
ous libertinism in tuckers and hoops;* or a nuisance in 

Wliat thougli, when they hear my soft strain, 
The virgins sit weeping around. 

'• Ah, CoHn ! tliy hopes are in vain ; 
Thy pipe and tliy laurel resign ; 
Thy false one inclines to a swain 
Whose music is sweeter than thine." 

* One of the most humorous of these is the paper on Hoops, which, the Sped 
tells us, particularly pleased his friend Sir Roger : 
— " Mr. Spectator, — 

_ "' You have diverted the town almost a whole month at the expense of the countl 
it is now high time that you should give the country their revenge. Since your \viv 
drawing from this place, the fair sex are run into great extravagances. Their pet 
coats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, are'^now blown up it: 
a most enormous concave, and rise every day more and more ; in short, sir, since c 
women know themselves to be out of the eye of the Spectator, they will be ke 
within no compass. You praised them a little too soon, for the modesty of tb 
head-dresses ; for as the humor of a sick person is often driven out of one limb in 
another, their superfluity of ornaments, instead of being entirely banished, seems on 
fallen from tlieir heads upon their lower parts. What they have lost in height tlv 
make up in breadtli, and contrary to all rules of architecture, widen the foundatio) 
at the same tune that they shorten the superstructure. 

" The women give out, in defence of these wide bottoms, that they are airy and ve: 
proper for the season ; but this I look upon to be only a pretence and a piece of ai 
tor it IS well known we have not had a more moderate summer these many years, < 
that It is certain the heat they complain of cannot be in the weather ; l)esides, I woui 
fain ask_ these tender-constitutioned ladies, why they should require more cooliE 
than their mothers before them ? " 

" [ find several speculative persons arc of opinion that our sex has of late yeai 
been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us at a distanc( 
It IS most certain that a woman's honor cannot be better intrenched than after thi 
manner, m circle within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks of lines and circuir 
vallation. A female who is thus invested in whalebone is sufficiently secured agains 
the approaches ot an ill-bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Ethei 
idge's way of making love in a tub as in the midst of so many hoops. 

' Among these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious tempers wh 
look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have it that it portend 
the downtall ot the French king, and observe, that the farthingale appeared in Eng 



1 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON. .^- 

)use of beaux' canes and snuff-boxes. It may be a lady is 
ied for breaking the peace of our sovereign lady Queen Anne, 
id ogling too dangerously from the side-box ; or a Templar 
r beating the watch, or breaking Priscian's head : or a citizen's 
ife for caring too much for the puppet-show, and too little for 
n- husband and children : every one of the little sinners 
•ought before him is amusing, and he dismisses each with 
e pleasantest penalties and the most charming words of 
Imonition. 

Addison wrote his papers as gayly as if he was going out 
r a holiday. When Steele's " Tatler " first began his prattle, 
ddison, then in Ireland, caught at his friend's notion, poured 
paper after paper, and contributed the stores of his mind, 
e sweet fruits of his reading, the delightful gleanings of his 
lily observation, with a wonderful profusion, and as it seemed 
i almost endless fecundity. He was six-and-thirty years old : 
11 and ripe. He had not worked crop after crop from his 
ain, manuring hastily, subsoiling indifferently, cutting and 
wing and cutting again, like other luckless cultivators of let- 
rs. He had not done much as yet ; a few Latin poems — 
aceful prolusions ; a polite book of travels ; 'a dissertation on 
edals, not very deep ; four acts of a tragedy, a great classical 
ercise ; and the " Campaign," a large prize poem that won an 
lormous prize. But with his friend's discovery of the " Tatler," 
ddison's calling was found, and the most delightful talker in 
e world began to speak. He does not go very deep : let 
ntlemen of a profound genius, critics accustomed to the 
unge of the bathos, console themselves by thinking that he 
uldti't go very deejD. There are no traces of suffering in his 
■iting. He was so good, so honest, so healthy, so cheerfully 
Ifish, if I must use the word. There is no deep sentiment, 
'doubt, until after his marriage, perhaps, whether he ever lost 

night's rest or his day's tranquillity about any woman in his 
e ;* whereas poor Dick Steele had capacity enough to melt, 
rd to languish, and to sigh, and to cry his honest old eyes out, 

a dozen. His writings do not show insight into or rever- 
ice for the love of w^omen, which I take to be, one the consc- 
ience of the other. He walks about the world v/atching their 

id a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion 
it it foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same prognostication as the 
1 of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt to think it is a sign that multitudes 
^.coming into the world rather than going out of it," &c., &c. — Spectato}-^ No. 127. 
■* " Mr. Addison has not had one epithalamium that I can hear of, and must even 
reduced, like a poorer and a bette: poet, Spenser, to make his own." — Pope's 
Wtters. 



426 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. \ 

pretty humors, fashions, follies, flirtations, rivalries ; and nqt^ 
them with the most charming archness. He sees them -i 
public, in the theatre, or the assembly, or the puppet-show \% 
at the toy-shop higgling for gloves and lace ; or at the auctioi 
battling together over a blue porcelain dragon or a darlir 
monster in Japan ; or at church, eyeing the width of their riva|j 
hoops, or the breadth of their laces, as they sweep down t^ 
aisles. Or he looks out of his window at the "Garter" in i^l 
James's Street, at Ardelia's coach, as she blazes to the drawitfj 
room with her coronet and six footmen ; and remembering thj 
her father was a Turkey merchant in the city, calculates hc^ 
many sponges went to purchase her earring, and how ma| 
drums of figs to build her coach-box ; or he demurely watche 
behind a tree in Spring Garden as Saccharissa (whom he know 
under her mask) trips out of her chair to the alley wher(,' S 
Fopling is waiting. He sees only the public life of womei 
Addison was one of the most resolute club-men of his day. H 
passed many hours daily in those haunts. Besides drinking-* 
which alas ! is past praying for — you must know it, he own^ 
too, ladies, that he indulged in that odious practice of smokic 
Poor fellow ! He was a man's man, remember. The oil 
woman he did know, he didn't write about. I take it "the^ 
would not have been much humor in that story. 

He likes to go and sit in the smoking-room at the '* Greciaii 
or the " Devil ; " to pace 'Change and the Mall * — to ming 

* "I have observed that_ a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till-' 
knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or a choleric dispcw) 
tion, married or a bachelor; with other particulars of a like nature, that conduce ver 
much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is & 
natural to_a reader, 1 design this paper and my next as prefatory discoiuses to my fo 
lowing writings ; and shall give some account in them of the persons that are cn'^age 
in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will .fall' 
my share, I jnust do myself the justice to open the work with my own history. * * 
There runs a story in the family, that when my mother v/as gone with chil 
me about three months, she dreamt that she was bi-ought to bed of a judge. Whetl 
this might proceed from a lawsuit which was then depending in the family, or : 
father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine ; for I am not so vain aS _ 
think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, thou^ 
that was the interpretation which t'ne neighborhood put upon it. The gravity of m; 
behavior at my very iirst appearance in the world, and all the time that I sucked 
seemed to favor my mother's dream ; for, as she has often told me, I threw away m; 
rattle before 1 was two months old, and would not make use of my coral till they hac 
taken away. the bells from it. 

"As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shal 
pass it over in silence. I find that during my nonage 1 had the reputation of a ver) 
sullen youth, but was always the favorite of my schoolmaster, who used to sav thai 
my parts ivcre solid and uwild zvear zvell. I had not been long at the uni-.'i isit) 
before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence ; for during the space ol 
eight years, excepting in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered th( 



CONGREVE AA'D ADDISON. 427 

hat great club of the world— sitting alone in it somehow : 
ing good-will and kindness for every single man and woman 
it— having need of some habit and custom binding him to 
ie few ; never doing any man a wrong (unless it be a wrong 
hint a little doubt about a man's parts, and to damn him 
h faint praise) ; and so he looks on the world and plays with 

ceaseless humors of all of us— laughs the kindest laugh— 
nts our neighbor's foible or eccentricity out to us with the 
st good-natured, smiling confidence ; and then, turning over 
shoulder, whispers our foibles to our neighbor. What would 

Roger de Coverley be without his follies and his charmmg 
ie brain-cracks ? * If the good knight did not call out to 

people sleeoing in church, and say '* Amen " with such a 
ightful pomposity : if he did not make a speech in the assize- 
irt apropos de hottes, and merely to show his dignity to Mr. 
tectator : t if he did not mistake Madam Doll Tearsheet for 

ntity of an hundred wwds ; and, indeed, I do not remember that I ever spoke 
,e sentences together in my whole life. ****** . 

- I have passed mv latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen m most 
lie places, though 'there are not more than half a dozen of my select friends that 
w me * * * There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make 
appearance ; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of pohfcians 
AVill's ' and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made m these 
e circular audiencesf Sometimes I smoke a pipe at ' Childs ' and whilst I seem 
ntive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table m the 
n. I appear on Tuesday night at ' St. James's Coffee-house ; ' and sometimes 30m 
little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who coiiies to hear and im- 
ve My face is likewise very well known at the ' Grecian,' the Cococa- ree, and 
he theatres both of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. 1 have been taken for a 
rchant upon the Exchange for above these two years ; and sometimes pass for a 

f. in the assembly of stock-jobbers at ' Jonathan's.' In short, wherever see a 
iter of people, I mix with them, though I never open my hps bu in my own club. 

- Thus I live in the world rather as a ' Spectator ' of mankind than as one of the 
cies ; by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman soldier^ 
rchaiit, and artisan, without ever meddling in any practical part ^^ f ; ^ ^" 
y well versed in the theory of a Inisband or a father and can discern the euois n 

economy, business, and diversions of others, better than those who are engaged in 
m-as stlnders-by discover blots which are apt to escape those who are n the 
,ie ***** In shoi t, I have acted, in all the parts of my life, as a looker-on, 
icli is the character I intend to preserve in this paper."— 5/^^/a.^^r No. i. 
* -So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which ^^^^^ ece" ^^ 
,n directed against'virtue, that, since his time the °f Vi''^ m °?.nT a^ ^ 
■ays been considered, amongst us, the sure mark of a fool. -Macaulay 
:t "The Court was sat before Sir Roger came; but, ^notwithstanding all the 
t ces had taken their places upon the bench, they made room for the old kn ght at 

head of them ; who for his reputation in the country took occasion to w^jsper i" 
■ ■ul-e's eir thit he was dad his lordship had met xvith so much good weather tn 
;^«V. "l wS'llSSfng'to the proceedi4s of the Court with "-ch attent " and 
.litely pleased with that great appearance and solemnity which so F^J 3' ^^^P^J 
lies uch a public administration of our laws; ^^1?^", after about an hour ssitt^^^^^^ 
Observed, to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial that my fnend S^^ Roger was 
ttiiTg up to speak. I was in .ome pain for hini, till _! found he '^f ^^^/^^^^^^^^^ ^^"^ 
f of two or three sentences, with a look of much business ^"^ great intrepidity^ 
I - Upon his first rising, the Court was hushed, and a general whisper lan among 



428 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

a lady of quality in Temple Garden : if he were wiser thai5; 

is: if he had not his humor to salt his life, and were but a n^ 

EngHsh gentleman and game-preserver— of what worth v\1 

he to us ? We love him for his vanities as much as his virtu 

What is ridiculous is delightful in him ; we are so fond of h 

because we laugh at him so. And out of that laughter, a 

out of that sweet weakness, and out of those harmless ecc( 

tricities and lollies, and out of that touched brain, and out 

that honest manhood and simplicity — we get a result of hap 

ness, goodness, tenderness, pity, piety; such as, if my audien 

will think their reading and hearing over, doctors and divin 

but seldom have the fortune to inspire. And why not t Is t 

glory of Heaven to be sung only by gentlemen in black coat 

Must the truth Ke only expounded in gown and surplice, ai 

out of those two vestments can nobody preach it .? Commei 

me to this dear preacher without orders— this parson in t 

tye-wig. When this man looks from the world, whose wea 

nesses he described so benevolentlv, up to the Heaven whic 

shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human face lip-hted i 

with a more serene rapture : a human intellect thrilling with^ 

purer love and adoration than Joseph Addison's. Listen 

him : from your childhood you liave known the verses • h 

wno can. hear their sacred music \vithout love and awe ?— ' 

"Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The moon takes up the wondrous" tale, 
And nightly to the listening earth 
Repeats the story of her birth ; 
Whilst all thp stars that round her burn, 
And all the planets in their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
And spread the truth from' pole'to poie. 
What though, in solemn silence, all 
Move round the dark terrestrial ball ; 
What though no real voice nor sound 
Amid their radiant orbs be found ; 
In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice, 
Forever singing as they shine. 
The hand that made us is divine." 

It seems to me those verses shine like the stars Th 
shine out of a great deep calm. When he turns to Heaven! 
Sabbath comes over that man's mind : and his face lights u] 

the country people that Sir Roger was 7ip. The speech he made wrs so little to th 
purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of t, and I be eve wa 
not so much designed by the knight himself to inform the Cour as to ^hrhiml 
figure m my eyes, and to keep up his credit in the coxxxiXxyr-Si>ectaor.£\ ' ' 



STEELE, 429 

j:rom it with a glory of thanks and prayer. I lis sense of 
reUgion stirs through his whole being. In the fields, in the 
own : looking at the birds in the trees : at the children in the 
streets : in the morning or in the moonlight : over his books 
n his own room : in a happy party at a country merry-making 
3r a town assembly, good-will and peace to God's creatures, 
ind love and awe to Him who made them, fill his pure heart 
and shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the most 
A'retched, I think Addison's was one of the most enviable. A 
ife prosperous and beautiful — a calm death — an immense fame 
md affection afterwards for his happy and spotless name.* 



STEELE. 

What do we look for in studying the history of a past age ? 
Is it to learn the political transactions and characters of tiie 
leading public men ? is it to make ourselves acquainted with 
the life and being of the time ? If we set out with the former 
^rave purpose, where is the truth, and who believes that he has 
it entire ? What character of what great man is known to you ? 
You can but make guesses as to character more or less happy. 
In common life don't you often judge and misjudge a mail's 
whole conduct, setting out from a wrong impression ? The 
tone of a voice, a word said in joke, or a trifle in behavior — 
the cut of his hair or the tie of his neck-cloth may disfigure him 
in your eyes, or poison your good opinion ; or at the end of 
/ears of intimacy it may be your closest friend says something, 
reveals something which had previously been a secret, which 
Filters all your views about him, and shows that he has been 
acting on quite a different motive to that which you fancied 

* '' Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) on his death bed, 
o ask V'ww whether the Christian religion was true."' — Dr. Young. Spcnce's Ancc- 
iotes. 

•• I ]iave always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an 
let. the former as an hal^it of the mind. Mirtli is short and transient, cheerfulness 
ixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth 
.vho are subject to the greatest depression of melancholy : on the contrary, cheerful- 
less, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us trom 
ailing into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flasli" of lightning that breaks 
hrougli a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment ; cheerfulness keeps up a kind 
)f daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity."— Addison : 
Spectator^ No. 381. 



^3 o EXGL/SH HUM ORIS TS. 

you knew. And if it is so with those 3^ou knew, how much 
more with those you don't know?" Say, for example, that 1 
want to understand the character of the Duke of Marlborough. 
T read Swift's history of the times in which he took a part ; the 
shrewdest of observers and initiated, one would think, into the 
politics of the age — he hints to me that Marlborough was a 
coward, and even of doubtful military capacity : he speaks of 
Walpole as a contemptible boor, and scarcely mentions, except 
to flout it, the great intrigue of the Queen's latter days, which 
was to have ended in bringing back the Pretender. Again, I 
read Marlborough's life by a copious archdeacon, who has the, 
command of immense papers, of sonorous language, of what is' 
called the best information ; and I get little or no insight into' 
this secret motive which, I believe, influenced the whole of 
Marlborough's career, which caused his turnings and windings, 
his opportune fidelity and treason, stopped his army almost at 
Paris gate, and landed him finally on the Hanoverian side — the 
winning side : I get, I say, no truth, or only a portion of it, in 
the narrative of either writer, and believe that Coxe's portrait, 
or Swift's portrait, is quite unlike the real Churchill. I take 
this as a single instance, prepared to be as skeptical about any 
other, and say to the Muse of History, " O venerable daughter 
of Mnemosyne, I doubt every single statement you ever made 
since your ladyship was a Muse ! For all your grave airs and 
high pretensions, you are not a whit more trustworthy than 
some of your lighter sisters on w^hom your partisans look down. 
You bid me listen to a general's oration to his soldiers : Non- 
sense ! He no more made it than Turpin made his dyin^ 
speech at Newgate. You pronounce a panegyric of a hero 
doubt it, and say you flatter outrageously You utter the coi 
demnation of a loose character: I doubt it, and think you ar 
prejudiced and take the side of the Dons. You offer me ai 
autobiography : I doubt all autobiographies I ever read ; except 
those, perhaps, of Mr. Robinson Crusoe, Mariner, and writers ' 
of his class. These have no object in setting themselves right 
with the public or their own consciences ; these have no motive 
for concealment or half-truths ; these call for no more confi- 
dence than I can cheerfully give, and do not force me to tax my 
credulity or to fortify it by evidence. I take up a volume of 
Dr. Smollett, or a volume of the Spectator^ and say the fiction 
carries a greater amount of truth in solution than the volume 
which purports to be all true. Out of the fictitious book I get 
the expression of the life of the time ; of the manners, of the 
movement, the dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules 



STEELE. 431 

tf society — the old times live again, and I travel in the old 
ountry of England. Can the heaviest historian do more for 
.ie ? " 

As we read in these delightful volumes of the Tatlcr and 
'Spectator the past age returns, the England of our ancestors is 
eyivified. The Maypole rises in the Strand again in London : 
he churches are thronged with daily worshippers ; the beaux 
re gathering in the coffee-houses ; the gentry are going to the 
)rawing-room ; the ladies are thronging to the toy-shops ; the 
hairmen are jostling in the streets ; the footmen are running 
/ith links before the chariots, or fighting round the theatre 
loors. In the country I see the young Squire riding to Eton 
f\\\\ his servants behind him, and Will Wimble, the friend of 
he family, to see him safe. To make that journey from the 
Jquire's and back. Will is a week on horseback. The coach 
akes five days between London and Bath. The judges and 
he bar ride the circuit. If my lady comes to town in her post 
:hariot, her people carry pistols to fire a salute on Captain 
vlacheath if he should appear, and her couriers ride ahead to 
irepare apartments for her at the great caravancerais on the 
oad ; Boniface receives her under the creaking sign of the 
' Bell " or the " Ram," and he and his chamberlains bow her 
ip the great stair t'^ the state-apartments, whilst her car- 
iage rumbles into the court-yard, where the "Exeter Fly" is 
ioused that performs Xx\^ journey in eight days, God willing, 
laving achieved its daily flight of twenty miles, and landed its 
)assengers for supper and sleep. The curate is taking his pipe 
n the kitchen, where the Captain's man — having hung up his 
naster's half pike — is at his bacon and eggs, bragging of 
?lamillies and Malplaquet to the town's-folk, who have their 
:lub in the chimney-corner. The Captain is ogling the cham- 
)ermaid in the wooden gallery, or bribing her to know who is 
he pretty young mistress that has come in the coach. The 
)ack-horses are in the great stable, and the drivers and ostlers 
carousing in the tap. And in Mrs. Landlady's bar, over a glass 
)f strong waters, sits a gentleman of military appearance, who 
ravels with pistols, as all the rest of the world does, and has 
I rattling gray mare in the stables which wi^ be saddled and 
iway with its owner half an hour before the " Fly " sets out on 
ts last day's flight. And some five miles on the road, as the 
* Exeter Fly " comes jingling and creaking onwards, it will 
fuddenly be brought to a halt by a gentleman on a gray mare, 
vith a black vizard on his face, who thrusts a long pistol into 
lie coach window, and bids the company to hand out their 



43 2 



EXGLISH in- MORIS IS. 






purses. * * * It must have been wo small pleasure even t 
sit in the great kitchen in those days, and see the tide of 
humankind pass by. We arrive at places now, but we travel 
no more. Addison talks jocularly of a difiference of manner 
and costume being quite perceivable at Staines, where there 
passed a young fellow " with a very tolerable periwig," though, 
to l^e sure, his hat was out of fashion, and had a Ramillies cock. 
I would have liked to travel in those days (being of that class 
of travellers who are proverbially pretty easy coram latronibiis) 
and have seen my friend with the gray mare and the black 
vizard. Alas ! there always came a day in the life of that 
warrior when it was the fashion to accompany him as he passed 
— v/ithout his black mask, and with a nosegay in his liand, 
accompanied by halberdiers and attended by the sheriff. — in a 
carriage without springs, and a clergyman jolting beside him, 
to a spot close by Cumberland Gate and the Marble Arch, 
where a stone still records that here Tyburn turnpike stood. 
What a change in a century ; in a few years ! Within a few 
yards of that gate the fields began : the fields of his exploits, 
behind the hedges of which he lurked and robbed. A great 
and wealthy city has grown over those meadows. Were a man 
brought to die there now, the windows would be closed and 
the inhabitants ke^p their houses ' in sickening horror. A 
hundred years back, people crowded to see that last act of n 
highwayman's life, and make jokes on it. Swift laughed at 
him, grimly advising him to provide a Holland shirt and white 
cap crowned with a crimson or black ribbon for his exit, to 
mount the cart cheerfully — shake hand v/ith the hangman, nnd 
so — farewell. Gay wrote the most delightful ballads, and made 
merry over the same hero. Contrast these with the writings 
of our' present humorists! C^'ompare those morals and ours 
— those manners and ours ! 

We can't tell — you would not bear to be told tije whole 
truth regarding those men and manners. You could no more 
suffer in a British drawing-room, under the reign of Queen 
Victoria, a fine gentleman or fine lady of Queen Anne's time, 
or hear what they heard and said, than you would receive an 
ancient Briton. It is as one reads about savages, that one 
contemplates the wild ways, the barbarous feasts, the terrific 
pastimes, of the men of pleasure of that age. We have our 
line gentlemen, and our " fast men ;" permit me to give you 
an idea of one particularly fast nobleman of Queen Anne's 
days, whose biography has been preserved to us by the law 
reporters. 



STEELE. ,.^ 

In 1 69 1, when Steele was a boy at school, my Lord Mohun 
:was tried by his peers tor the murder of William Mountford, 
::omediaii. In ^"Howell's State Trials," the reader will fmcl 
not only an edifying account of this exceedingly fast nobleman, 
but of the times and manners of those days. My lord's friend, 
a Captain Hill, smitten with the charms of the beautiful Mrs. 
Bracegirdle, and anxious to marry her at all hazards, deter- 
mined to carry her oft, and for this purpose hired a hackney- 
coach with six horses, and a half-dozen of soldiers, to aid him 
in the storm. The coach with a pair of horses (the four leaders 
being in waiting elsewhere) took its station opposite my Lord 
Craven's house in Drury Lane, by which door Mrs. Bracegirdle 
was to pass on her way from the theatre. As she passed in 
company of her mamma and a friend, Mr. Page, the Captain 
seized her by the hand, the soldiers hustled Mr. Page and at- 
tacked him sw^ord in hand, and Captain Hill and his noble 
friend endeavored to force Madam Bracegirdle into the coach. 
Mr. Page called for help : the population of Drury Lane rose : 
it was impossible to effect the capture ; and bidding the 
soldiers go about their business, and the coach to drive t)!?, 
Hill let go of his prey sulkily, and waited for other opportuni- 
ties of revenge. The man of whom he was most jealous was 
Will Mountford, the comedian; Will removed, he thought Mrs. 
Bracegirdle might be his : and accordingly the Captain and his 
lordsliip lay that night in wait for Will, and as he was coming 
out of a house in Norfolk Street, while Mohun engaged him in 
talk, Hill, i!i the words of the Attorney-General, made a pass 
and ran him clean through the body. 

Sixty-one of my lord's peers finding him not guilty of mur- 
der, while bat fourteen found him guilty, this very fast noble- 
man was discharged : and made his appearance seven years 
after in another trial for murder — when he, my Lord Warwick, 
and three gentlemen of the military profession, were concerned 
in the light which ended in the death of Captain Coote. 

This jolly company w^ere drinking together at " Lockit's " 
m Charing Cross, when angry words arose between Captain 
Coote and Captain French ; whom my Lord Mohun and my 
Lord the Earl of Warwick * and Holland endeavored to pacify 

- * The liusband of the Lady Warwick who married Addison, and the father of the 
'young Earl, who w:\s brought to his stepfather's bed to see *' how a Christian could 
die."' ile was ainoni^st the wildest of the nobility of that day; and in the curious 
collection of Chap-books at the British Museum, I have seen more than one anecdote 
of the freaks of the gay lord. He was popular in London as such daring spirits 
ihav; been in our time. The anecdotists speak very kindly of his practical jokes. 
Moh'.m was scarcely out of prison for his second homicide, when he went on Lord 

28 



434 



ENGL ISn I ILL MORIS TS. 



My Lord Warwick was a clear friend of Captain Coote, lent hir 
a hundred pounds to buy his commission in the Guards ; one 
when the captain was arrested for 13/. by his tailor, my Ion 
lent him five guineas, often paid his reckoning for him, an( 
showed him other offices of friendship. On this evening tin 
disputants, French and Coote, being separated whilst they wero 
up stairs, unluckily stopped to drink ale again at the bar oi 
'' Lockit's." The row began afresh — Coote lunged at Frencl 
over the bar, and at last all six called for chairs, and went tc 
Leicester Fields, where they fell to. Their lordships engagec 
on the side of Captain Coote. My Lord of Warwick waj 
severely wounded in the hand, Mr. French also was stabbed 
but honest Captain Coote got a couple of wounds — one espe« 
cially, " a wound in the left side just under the short ribs, and 
piercing through the diaphragma," which did for Captair 
Coote. Hence the trials of my Lords Warwick and Mohun 
hence the assemblage of peers, the report of the transaction, ir 
which these defunct fast men still live for the observation ol 
the curious. My Lord of Warwick is brought to the bar by the 
Deputy Governor of the Tower of London, having the axe car-i 
ried before him by the gentleman jailer, who stood with it at 
the bar at the right hand of the prisoner, turning the edge from 
him ; the prisoner, at his approach, making three bows, one to 
his Grace the Lord High Steward, the other to the peers oni 
each harid ; and his Grace and the peers return the salute. 
And besides these great personages, august in periwigs, ancL 
nodding to the right and left, a host of the small come up oa' 
of the past and pass before us — the jolly captains brawling i 
the tavern, and laughing and cursing over their cups — th 
drawer that serves, the bar-girl that waits, the bailiff on th 
prowl, the chairmen trudging though the black lampless street 
and smoking their pipes by the railings, whilst swords an 
clashing in the garden within. " Help there ! a gentleman ii 
hurt ! " The chairmen put up their pipes, and help the gentle 
man over the railings, and carry him, ghastly and bleeding, to 
the Bagnio in Long Acre, where they knock up the surgeon— a 
pretty tall gentleman : but that wound under the short ribs has 
done for him. Surgeon, lords, captains, bailiffs, chairmen, and 
gentleman jailer with your axe, where be you now? ^he gen 



J 



Macclesfield's embassy to the Elector of Hanover, when Queen Anne sent the garte: 
to PI. E. Highness. Tlae chronicler of the expedition speaks of liis lordshiplis an 
amiable young man, who had been in bad company, but was quite repentant and 
reformed. He and Macartney afterwards murdered the Duke of Hamilton between 
them, m which act Lord Mohun died. This amiable baron's name was Charles, an( 
not Henry, as a recent novelist has christened him. 



stj-j.:j.k. ^3- 

tleman axeman's head is off his own shoulders ; the lords and 
judges can wag theirs no longer ; the bailiff's writs have ceased 
to run ; the honest chairmen's pipes are put out, and with their 
brawny calves they have walked away into Hades — all as irre- 
coverably done for as Will Mountforcl or Captain Coote. The 
subject of our night's lecture saw all these people — rode in 
Captain Coote's company of the Guards very probably — wrote 
and sighed for Bracegirdle, went home tipsy in many a chair, 
after many a bottle, in manv a tavern — iied from many a 
bailiff. 

In 1709, when the publication of the Tatler began, our 
great-great-grandfathers must have seized upon that new and 
delightful paper with much such eagerness as lovers of light lit- 
erature in a later day exhibited when the Waverley novels 
appeared, upon which the public rushed, forsaking that feeble 
entertainment of which the Miss Porters, the Anne of Swanseas, 
and worthy Mrs. Radcliffe herself, with her dreary castles and 
exploded old ghosts, had had pretty much the monopoly. I have 
looked over many of the comic books with whicli our ancestors 
amused themselves, from the novels of Swift's coadjutrix, Mrs. 
Manley, the delectable aathor of the '' New Atlantis," to the 
facetious productions of Tom Durfe}-, and Tom Brown, and Ned 
Ward, writer of the " London Spy " and several other volumes of 
ribaldry. The slang of the taverns and ordinaries, the wit of 
the Bagnios, form the strongest part of the farrago of which 
these libels are composed. In the excellent newspaper collec- 
tion at the British Museum, you may see, besides, the Crafts- 
men and Postboy specimens, and queer specimens they are, of 
the higher literature of Queen Anne's time. Here is an ab- 
stract from a notable journal bearing date, Wednesday, Octo- 
ber 13th, 1708, and entitled TJic British Apollo ; or, awious 
mnuseme?its for the i7ige?iious, by a society of oentlanen:'' The 
British Apollo invited and professed to answer questions upon 
all subjects of wit, morality, science, and even religion ; and 
two out of its four pages are filled with queries and replies 
much like some of the oracular penny prints of the present 
time. 

One of the first querists, referring to the passage that a 
bishop should be the husband of one wife, argues that polygamy 
is justifiable in the laity. The society of gentlemen conduct- 
ing the British Apollo are posed by this casuist, and promise to 
give him an answer. Celinda then wishes to know from " the 
gentlemen," concerning the souls of the dead, whether they shall 
have the satisfaction to know thos-e whom they most valued in 



^.6 ENGLISH Hi'MORISTS. 

this transitory life. The gentlemen of the Apollo give but cold 
comfort to poor Celinda. They are inclined to think not : for, 
say they, since every inhabitant of those regions will be infi- 
nitelv dearer than here are our nearest relatives — what have we 
to do with a partial friendship in that happy place ? Poo.i 
Celinda ! it may have been a child or a lover whom she had 
lost, and was pining after, when the oracle of British Apollo 
gave her this dismal answer. Sh.e has solved the question for 
herself by this time, and knows quite as well as the society of 
gentlemen. 

From theology we come to physics, and Q. asks, " Why does 
hot water freeze sooner than cold .? " Apollo replies, " Hot 
Vv-ater cannot be said to freeze sooner than cold ; but water 
once heated and cold, may be subject to freeze by the evapora- 
tion of the spirituous parts of the water, which renders it less 
able to withstand the power of frosty weather." 

The next query is rather a delicate one. " You, Mr. Apollo, 
who are said to be the God of v/isdom, pray give us the reason 
why kissing is so much in fashion : what benefit one receives 
by it, and who was the inventor, and you will oblige Corinna." 
To this queer demand the lips of Phoebus, smiling, answer : 
''Pretty innocent Corinna! Apollo owns that he was a little 
surprised by your kissing question, particularly at that joart of 
it where you desire to know the benefit you receive by it. Ah 1 
madam, had you a lover, you would not come to Apollo for a 
solution ; since there is no dispute but the kisses of mutual 
lovers give infinite satisfaction. As to its invention, 'tis certain 
nature was its author, and it began with the first courtship." 

After a column more of questions, follow nearly two pages 
of poems, signed by Philander, Armenia, and the like, and 
chiefly on the tender passion ; and the paper wound up with a 
letter from Leghorn, an account of the Duke of Marlborough 
and Prince Eugene before Lille, and proposals for publishing 
two sheets on the present state of ^Ethiopia, by Mr. Hill : all 
of which is printed for the authors by J. Mayo, at the Printing 
Press against Water Lane in Fleet Street. What a change it 
must have been — how Apollo's oracles must have been struck 
dumb, when the 7'^?//<?/' appeared, and scholars, gentlemen, men 
of the world, men of genius, began to speak ! 

Shortly before the Boyne was fought, and young Swift had 
begun to make acquaintance with English court manners and 
English servitude, in Sir William Temple's family, another Irish 
youth was brought to learn his humanities at the old school of 
Charterhouse, near Smithfield ; to which foundation he had 



STEELE. ^3^ 

been appointed by James Duke of Ormond, a governor of tlie 
House, and a patron of the lad's family. The boy was an or- 
phan, and described, twenty years after, with a sweet pathos 
and simplicity, some of the earliest recollections of a life which 
was destined to be checkered by a strange variety of good and 
ftvil fortune. 

I am afraid no good report could be given by his master? 
and ushers of that thick-set, squared-faced, black-eyed, soft- 
hearted little Irish boy. He was very idle. He was whipped 
deservedly a great number of times. Though he had very goocj 
parts of his own, he got other boys to do his lessons for him, 
and only took just as much trouble as should enable him to 
scuffle through his exercises, and by good fortune escape the 
flogging-block. One hundred and fifty years after, I have my- 
self inspected, but only as an amateur, that instrument of 
righteous torture still existing, and in occasional use, in a seclu- 
ded private apartment of the old Charterhouse School ; and 
have no doubt it is the very counterpart, if not the ancient and 
interesting machine itself, at which poor Dick Steele submitted 
himself to the tormentors. 

Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this boy 
went invariably into debt with the tart-woman ; ran out of 
bounds, and entered into pecuniary, or rather promissory, en- 
gagements with the neighboring lollipop-vendors and piemen- 
exhibited an early fondness and capacity for drinking mum and- 
sack, and borrowed from all his comrades who had money to 
lend. I have no .sort of authority for the statements here made 
of Steele's early life ; but if the child is father of the man, the 
father of young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford without tak- 
ing a degree, and entered the Life Guards — the father of Cap- 
tain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got his company through 
the patronage of my Lord Cutts — the father of Mr. Steele tlie 
Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of the Gazette, the Tatkr, 
and Spectatoj'. the expelled Member of Parliament, and the au- 
thor of the " Tender Husband" and the " Conscious Lovers ; " 
if man and boy resembled each other, Dick Steele the school- 
boy must liavebeen one of the most generous, good-for-nothing, 
amiable little creatures that ever conjugated the verb tupto, I 
beat, tuptomai, I am whipped, in any school in Great Britain. 

Almost every gentleman who does me the honor to hear me 
will remember that the very greatest character which he has 
seen in the course of his life, and the person to whom he has 
looked up with the greatest wonder and reverence, was the head 
bov at his school. The schoolmaster himself hardly inspires 



;^^S> ENGLISH HTjMOKISTS. \ 

such an awe. The head boy construes as well as the school^ 
master himself. When he begins to speak the hall is hushed^ 
and every little boy listens. He writes off copies of Latin 
verses as melodiously as Virgil. He is good-natured, and, his 
own masterpieces achieved, pours out other copies of verses 
for other boys with an astonishing ease and fluency ; the idle 
ones only trembling lest they should be discovered on giving in 
their exercices, and whipped because their poems were too 
good. I have seen great men in my time, but never such a 
great one as that head boy of my childhood ; we all thought he 
must be Prime Minister, and I was disappointed on meeting 
him in after-life to find he was no more than six feet high. 

Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted such an 
admiration in the years of his childhood, and retained it faith- 
fully through his life. Through the school and through the 
world, whithersoever his strange fortune led this erring, way- 
ward, affectionate creature, Joseph Addison was always h'is 
head boy. Addison wrote his exercises. Addison did his best 
themes. He ran on Addison's messages : fagged for him and 
blacked his shoes : to be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest 
pleasure ; and he took a sermon or a caning from his monitor 
with the most boundless reverence, acquiescence, and affection.* 

Steele found Addison a stately college Don at Oxford, and 
himself did not make much figure at this place. He wrote a 
comedy, which, by the advice of a friend, the humble fellow 
burned there ; and some verses, which I dare say are as sublime 
as other gentlemen's composition at that age ; but being smitten 
with a sudden love for military glor}^, he threw up the cap and 
gown for the saddle and bridle, and rode privately in the Horse 
Guards, in the Duke of Ormond's troop — the second — and, 
probably, with the rest of the gentlemen of his troop, "all mounted 
on black horses with white feathers in their hats, and scarlet 
coats richly laced," marched by King William, in Hyde Park, 
in November, 1699, and a great show of the nobilitv, besides 
twenty thousand people, and above a thousand coaches. " The 
Guards had just got their new clothes," the Londo7i Post said : 
"they are extraordinary grand, and thought to be the finest 
body of horse in the world." But Steele could hardly have seen 
any actual service. He who wrote about himself, his mother, 

* '' Steele had the greatest veneration for Addison, and used to show it, in all 
companies, ni a particular manner. Addison, now and then, used to play a little 
upon him ; but he always took it well."— Pope. Spnce's Anecdotes. 

" Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the world : even in his worst 
state of health, he seemed to desire nothing but to please and be pleased."— Dr, 
Young. Sfence's Anecdotes, 



STEELE. 43^ 

his wife, his loves, his debts, his friends, and the wine he drank, 
would have told us of his battles if he had seen any. His old 
patron, Ormond, probably got him his cornetcy in the Guards, 
from which he was promoted to be a Captain in Lucas's Fusi- 
liers, getting his company through the patrona ;j of Lord Cutts, 
whose secretary he was, and to whom he dedicated his work 
called the " Christian Hero." As for Dick, whilst writing this 
ardent devotional work, he was deep in debt, in drink, and in 
all the follies of the town ; it is related that all the officers of 
Lucas's, and the gentlemen of the Guards, laughed at Dick.* 

* The gayety of his dramatic tone may be seen in this little scene between two 
brilliant sisters, from his comedy '• The Funeral, or Grief a la Mode."' Dick wrote 
this, he said, from " a necessity of enlivening his character," whicli, it seemed, the 
■' Christian Hero " had a tendency to make too decorous, grave, and respectable in the 
;yes of readers of that pious piece. 

\Scene draws and discovers Lady Charlotte, reading at a table, — Lady Har- 
riet, playing at a glass, to and fro, ajid viewing herself. \ 

"Z. Ha. — Nay, good sister, you may as well talk to me \looking at herself as she 
^peaks'] as s'.t staring at a book which I know you can't attend. — Good Dr. Lucas 
nay have writ there what he pleases, bat there's no putting Francis, Lord Hardy, 
low Earl of Brumpton, out of your head, or making him absent from your eyes. Do 
jut look on me, now, and deny it if you can. 

" L. Ch. — You are tlie maddest girl \s7niling\ 

" L. Ha. — Look ye, I knew you could not say it and forbear laughing [looking over 
Charlotte']. — Oh! I see his name as plain as you do — F-r-a-n, Fran, — c-i-s, cis, Fran- 
ks, 'tis in every line of the book. 

" L. Ch. [prising] — It's in vain, I see, to mind anything in such impertinent com- 
pany — but grantmg 'twere as you say, as to my Lord Hardy — 'tis more excusable to 
idmire another than oneself. 

" L. Ha. — No, I think not, — yes, I grant you, than really to be vain of one's per 
;on, but I don't admire myself — Pish ! I don't believe my eyes to have that softness. 
'Looking ill the glass.] They ain't so piercing: no, 'tis only stuff, the men will be 
alking. — Some people are such admirers of teeth — Lord, what signifies teeth ! 
' Sho-wiiig her teeth.] Avery blackamoor has as white a set of teeth as I. — No, 
lister, I don't admire myself, but I've a spirit of contradiction in me : I don't know 
;'ni in Icvc with myself, only to rival the men. 

''Z.. Ch. — Ay, but Mr. Campley will gain ground ev'n of that rival of his, your 
iear self. 

'•Z. Ha. — Oh, what have I done to you, that you should name that insolent in- 
ruder ? A confident, opinionative fop. No, indeed, if I am, as a poetical lover of 
nine sighed and sung of both sexes. 

The public envy and the public care, 

: sha'n't be so easily catched — I thank him — I want but to be sure I should heartily 
orment him by banishing him, and then consider whether he should depart this life 
»r not. 

•'Z. Ch. — Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in your humor does 
lo; at all become you. 

"Z. Ha. — Vanity! All the matter is, we gay people are more sincere than you 
vise folks : all your life's an art. — Speak your soul. — Look you there. — {^Hauling her 
the glass ?^ Are you not struck with a secret pleasure when you view that bloom in 
'our look, that harmony in your shape, that promptitude in your mien ? 

" Z. Ch. — Well, simpleton, if T am at iirst so simple as to be a little taken with 
ayself, I know it a fault, and take pains to correct it. 

"Z. Ha. — Pshaw! Pshaw! Talk t!iis musty tals to cid Mrs. Fardingale, 'tis too 
oon f-)r m:; to think a'" that rate. 



^^o ENiiLISH f/rMOR/STS. 

And in truth a theologian in liquor is n®i a respectable ob}e<^ 
and a hermit, though ""he may be out at elbows, must not be li 
debt to the tailor. Steele says of. himself that he was always 
sinning and repenting. He beat his breast and cried most 
piteously when he ^//V/Vepent : but as soon as crying had made 
him thirsty, he fell to sinning again. In that charming paper 
in the laikr, in which he records his father's death, his mother's 
griefs, his own most solemn and tender emotions, he says he is 
interrupted by the arrival of a hamper of wine, "the same as is 
to be sold at Garraway's, next week ; " upon the receipt of 
which he sends for three friends, and they fall to instantly,^ 
" drinking two bottles apiece, with great benefit to themselves 
and not separating till two o'clock in the morning.'' 

His life was so. Jack the drawer was always interrupting 
it, bringing him a bottle from the '' Rose," or inviting him ovei 
to a bout there with Sir Plume and Mr. Diver ; and Dick wiped 
his eyes, which were whimpering over his papers, took down his 
laced hat, ]uit on his sword and wig, kissed his wife and children, . 
told them a lie about pressing business, and went off to th^ 
" Rose ■' to the jolly fellows. 

While ^tr. Addison was abroad, and after he came home iq 
rather a dismal way to wait upOn Providence in his shabby lodg- 
ing in the Haymarket, young Captain Steele was cutting a mucb 
smarter figure than that of his classical friend of Charterhouse 
Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Could not some painter give an 
inter\'iew between the gallant captain of Lucas's, with his hat 
cocked, and his lace, and his face loo, a trifle tamished withj 
drink, and that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and poor, 
his friend and monitor of schooldays, of all days? How Dicl( 
must have bragged about his chances and his hopes, and th( 
tine company he kept, and the charms of the reigning toast! 
and popular actresses, and the number of bottles that he an( 
my lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked overnighl 
at the " Devil," or the "Garter!" Cannot one fancy Joseph 
Addison's calm smile and cold gray eyes following Dick for an 
instant, as he struts down the Mall, to dine with the Guard a 
St. James's, before he turns, with his sober pace and threadban 

" L. Ch. — They that think it too soon to understand themselves will very soon fine 
it too late. — But tell me honestly, don't you like Campley ? 

" L. Ha. — The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing did not think o; 
getting me so easily. — Oh, I hate a heart 1 can't break when I please. — What makes 
the value of dear china, but that 'tis so brittle i" — were it not for that, you might as wel 
have stone mugs in your closet." — The Ftntcrai, Oct. 2d. 

•' We knew the obligations the stage had to his writings [.Steele's] ; there beln^ 
scarcely a comedian of merit m our whole company whom his Tatlcrs had not mad 
better bv hi-, reconiinondation oi them.'" — Cibber. 



I STEELE. 4^1 

suit, to walk back to his lodgings up the two pair of stairs ? 
Steele's name was down for promotion, Dick always said him- 
self, in the glorious, pious, and immortal William's' last table- 
book. Jonathan Swift's name had been written there bv the 
same hand too. 

Our worthy friend, the author of the " Christian Hero,"' con- 
tinued to make no small figure about town by the use of his 
wits.* He was appointed Gazetteer : he wrote, in 1703, " The 
Tender Husband," his second jDlay, in which there is some 
delightful farcical writing, and of which he fondly owned in after- 
lite, and when Addison was no more, that there were '• many 
applauded strokes " from Addison's beloved hand.t Is it not 
a pleasant partnership to remember? Can't one fancy Steele 
full of spirits and youth, leaving his gay company to go to x^d- 
dison's lodging, where his friend sits in the shabby sitting-room, 
quite serene, and cheerful, and poor.^ In 1704, Steele came on 
the town with another comedy, and behold it was so moral and 
religious, as poor Dick insisted, — so dull the town thought, — 
that the ''Lying Lover " was damned. 

Addison's hour of success now came, and he was able to 
help our friend the " Christian Hero " in such a way, that, if 
there had been any chance of keeping that poor tipsy cham- 
pion upon his legs, his fortune was safe, and his competence 
assured. Steele procured the place of Commissioner of Stamps : 
he wrote so richly, so gracefully often, so kindly always, with 
such a pleasant wit and easy frankness, with such a gush of 
good spirits and good-humor, that his early papers may be 
compared to Addison's own, and are to be read, by a male 
reader at least, with quite an equal pleasure. $ 

* " There is not now in liis sight that excellent man, whom Heaven made liis 
friend and superior, to be ?.t a certain place in pain for what he should say or do. I 
will go on in his further encouragement. The best woman tliat ever man had cannot 
now lament and puie at his neglect of himself." — Steele [of liimself] : The Tlieatrc. 
No. 12, Feb. 1719-20. 

t " The Funeral " supplies an admirable stroke of humor, — one which Sydney 
Smith lias used as an illustration of the faculty in his Lectures. 

The undertaker is talking to his employes about their duty. 

Sable. — ••' Fla, you ! — A little more upon the dismal {forming tlicir counifnanccs\ : 
th"s fellow has a good mortal look, — place him near the corpse : that wainscot-face 
must be o' top of the stairs ; tliat fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were 
full of some strange misery) at the end of the hall. So — But I'll fix you all myself. 
Let's have no laughing now on any ])rovocation. Look yonder, — that hale, well-locking 
puppy 1 Vou ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of a gr:at nir.n's 
service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages "i—D-d not I Qroe you fen. ihcn 
fifteen., and twenty shUln! as a week to be sor^-onfrfl'! — and tJie more I give you I 
think the gladder yon arc ' " 

t •• Front n/y oxen A/'artmeni., Nov. i6. 

■' There are several persons wlio have many ))Ieasures nnd entertainments in 
tlien- po-^-^ession. whicJi thev do not i\\\'^-- ; it if-, t'lcref'or';, a k'iul ;!a 1 gn"d ctfi'.'" to 



442 ^i - V GLISH HUMORJS TS. 

After the Tatleriw 171 1, the famous Spectator made its ap 
pearance, and this was followed at various intervals, by many 
periodicals under the same editor — the Guardian — the English' 

acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of 
tlieir good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state often 
want sucli a monitor ; and pine away their days by looking upon the same condition 
jn •Rguish and murmuring, which carries with it, in the opinion of others, a compli- 
cation of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes. 

" I am led into this thought by a visit I made to an old friend who was formeily 
my schoolfellow. He came to town last week, with his family, for the winter ; : nd 
yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, 
at home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. I 
cannot, indeed, express the pleasure it is to be met by the children with so much 
joy as I am when 1 go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come first, when 
they think it is 1 that am knocking at tlie door ; and tliat child which loses the race 
to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff , This day I was led in by 
a prettv' girl that we all thought must have forgot me ; for the family has been out of 
town these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took 
up our discourse at the first entrance; after which, they began to rally me upon a 
thousand little stories they heard in the country, about my marriage with one of my 
neighbor's daughters ; upon which, the gentleman, my friend, said, 'Nay; if Mr. 
Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, I hope mine shall have the 
preference : there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow 
as the best of them. But 1 know him too well ; he is so enamored with the very 
memory of those who flourislied in our youth, that he will not so much as look upon 
the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a 
day to refresh your countenance and dress when Teraminta reigned in your heart. 
As v/e came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her.' 
With such reflections on little passages which happened long ago, we passed our 
time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner his lady left the room, as did 
also the children. As soon as we v.-crc alone, he took me by the hand : ' Well, my 
good friend,' sa}'s he, ' 1 am heartily glad to sec thee ; I was afraid you would never 
have seen all the company that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think the 
good woman of the house a little altered since you followed her from the playhouse 
to find out who she was for me ? ' I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, 
which moved me not a little. But, to turn the discourse, I said, ' She is not, indeed, 
that creature she was when she returned me the letter 1 carried from you, and told 
me, " She hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouljle her, 
w-ho had never offended me ; but would be so much the gentleman's friend as to 
dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in.'' You may remember 
I thought her in earnest, and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made 
his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to be forever 
fifteen.' ' Fifteen ! ' replied my good friend. ' Ah ! you little understand— you, that 
have lived a bachelor — how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is in being really 
beloved ! It is impossible that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me 
such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her 
countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me in my fever. This was 
followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to'" have carried me off last winter. I 
tell you, sincerely, I have so many obligations to her that I cannot, with any sort of 
moderation, think of her present state of health. But, as to what you say of iifteen, 
she gives me every day pleasure beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her 
beauty when I was in the vigor of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresli 
instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regr.r.l to my 
fortune. Her face is to me much moi^e beautiful than when I first saw It ; there is 
no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the very instant it was occasioned 
by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus, at the sam^ time, 
raethinks, the love ] conceived towards her for what she was, is heightened by my 
gratitude for Avhat she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion 
c©mnionly called by that name, as the loud laughter of Iniffoons is inferior to tlid 



STEELE. 



443 



^^ifi — the Lover, whose love was rather insipid — the Reader, 
)f whom the public saw no more after his second appearance 
—the Theatre, under the pseudonym of Sir John Edgar, which 

;legant mirth of gentlemen. Oh ! she is an inestimable jewel ! In her examination 
)f her household affairs, she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes 
ler servants obey her like children ; and the meanest we have has an ingenious shame 
"or an offence not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to 
^'ou, my old friend ; ever since her sickness, thmgs that gave me the quickest joj 
oefore turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know 
;he poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do should they 
.ose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling my 
uoys stories of battles, and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, 
md the gossipping of it, is turned into invvard reflection and melancholy.' 

" He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and, 
with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, told us ' she had been searching 
her closet for sometliing very good to treat such an old friend as I was.' Her 
husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance ; and I 
saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The lady observing something in our looks 
which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband 
receive her with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed at 
hat we had been talking of ; and applying herself to mc, said, with a smile, ' Mr. 
Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you ; 1 shall still live to have you for 
my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he 
has done since his coming to towr. You must know he tells me, that he finds London 
is a much more healthy place than the country ; for he sees several of his old 
acquaintances and schoolfellows are \\^xe— young fclhnvs with fair, fnll-bottovicd 
periivigs. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out opcn-brcasted.^ 
My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humor, made her 
sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense ; 
and to keep up the good-humor she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon 
me. * Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the play- 
house ; suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me in the 
front box.' This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties who were 
the mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, ' I 
■was glad she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but her 
eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toast.' 

" We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady, 
when, on a sudden, we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and immediately entered 
my little godson to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and 
chiding, would have him put out of the room ; but I would not part with him so. I 
found, upon conversation with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that 
the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other 
side of eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in ' /lisop's Fables ; ' 
but he frankly declared to me his mind, ' that he did not delight in that learning 
because he did not believe they were true ; ' for which reason I found he had very 
much turned his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives of Don Bellianis of 
Greece, Guy of Warwick, ' the Seven Champions,' and other historians of that age. 
I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness of his son, 
.and that these diversions might turn to some profit. I found the boy had made 
remarks which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He 
would tell you the mismanagement of John Hickerthrift, find fault with the passionate 
temper of Bevis of Southampton, and loved St. George for being the champion of 
England ; and bv this means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of 
discretion, virtue, and honor. 1 was extolling his accomplishments, when his mothe'- 
told me ' that the little giri who led me in this morning was, in her way, a better 
scholar than he. Betty,' said she, ' deals chiefly in fairies and sprights ; and some- 
times in a winter night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are atraid 
to go up to bed.' 

"I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes m serious 



^^^^ ENirLISH IICMORFSTS. 

Steele wrote while Governor of the _Royal Company of Comt 
dians, to which post, and to that of Surveyor of the Roy« 
Stables at Hampton Court, and to the Commission of th( 
Peace for IVIiddlesex, and to the honor of knighthood, SteeL 
had been preferred soon after the accession of George I. 
whose cause honest Dick had nobly fought, through disgrace 
and danger, against the most formidable enemies, againi 
traitors and bullies, against Bolingbroke and Swift in tlie las 
reign. With the arrival of the King, that splendid conspiracy 
broke up ; and a golden opportunity came to Dick Steel^j 
whose hand, alas, was too careless to gripe it. 

Steele married twice ; and outlived his places, his schemesi 
his wife, his income, his health, and almost everything but hij 
kind heart. That ceased to trouble him in 1729, v/hen he died; 
worn out and almost forgotten by his contemporaries, in Wales, 
where he had the remnant of a property. 

Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature ; al 
women especially are bound to be grateful to Steele, as he was 
the first of our writers who really seemed to admire and respecl 
th.em. Congreve the Great, who alludes to (he low estimation 
in which women were held in Elizabeth's time, as a reason wh\ 
the' women of Shakspeare make so small a ligure in tiie poet',' 
dialogues, though he can himself pay splendid compliments t( 
women, yet looks on them as mere instruments of gallantry, ant 
destined, like the most consummate fortifications, to fall, aftei 
a certahi time, before the arts and bravery of the besiegerj 
man. There is a letter of Swift's, entitled '' Advice to a very 
Young Married Lady," v^hicin shows the Dean's opinion of tho 
female society of his day, and that if he despised man lu: 
utterly scorned women too. No lady of our time could be 
treated by any man, were he ever so much a wit or Dean, i;i 
such a tone of insolent patronage and vulgar protection, in 
this performance. Swift hardly takes pains to hide his opinion 
that a woman is a fool : tells her to read books, as if reading 
was a novel accomplishment ; and informs her that "not one 
gentleman's daughter in a thousand has been brought to read 
or understand her own natural tongue."' Addison laughs at 
women equally ; but. with the gentleness and ]x>liteness of his 

di.scciiir-", with this particular pk-asure, Avliich gives' the on]\ tiuo r;^lis!-i t'. nil rp.r- 
vjrsation, a sense tliat every one of us liked each other. [ v,-?^it ho-'i:, CMisiflcTiii:; 
th; lUffercnt conditions of a married life and that of a Ixichclor; and T mvst confess 
it sfnitlv me with a secret concern, to reflect, that whenever T l;o rff 1 <Ar.-\'\ I stvc i<>-> 
tr.'.r -, Ijrl-.'nd ;nr. In this pensive inood I return lo .'n-- fninih' ; • i. *■ " v> s>^,-. ;o 
nv ;!::;iii, mv do;.f, luv cat. who onlv can be ihe h'-rt^r y-x ••.■"r^'- for •■•'i-it i),in');ii» t:j 



STEELE. 445 



nature, smiles at them and watches them, as if they were harm- 
less, half-witted, amusing, pretty creatures, only made to be 
-nen's plaything:s. It was Steele who first began to pay a manly 
homa-'-e to their goodness and understanding, as well as then- 
tenderness and beauty.* In his comedies, the heroes do not 
r mt and rave about the divine beauties of Gloriana or Slatira. 
as the characters were made to do in the chivalry romances and 
the hi'^h-liown dramas just going out of vogue ; but Steele ad- 
mire-^ Somen's virtue," acluiowledges their sense, and adores 
iheir purity and beautv, with an ardor and strength whicli 
should win^ the good-will of all women to their hearty and re- 
si.eciful champion. It is this ardor, this respect, this manhness, 
which makes his comedies so pleasant and then" heroes such 
fine crentlemen. He paid the finest compliment to a woman 
that perhaps ever was offered. Of one woman, whom Con- 
crreve had also admired and celebrated, Steele says, that ^^ to 
have loved her was a liberal education." " How often, he 
sivs dedicating a volume to his wife, " how often has your ten- 
derness removed pain from mv sick head, how often anguish 
from mv altiicted heart \ IL there are such beings as guardian 
anpels,'tliev are thus employed. 1 cannot believe one of them 
to be inore\rood in inclination, or more charming m iorm than 
my wife'" His breast seems to warm and his eyes to kindle 
when he meets with a -ood and beautiful woman, and it is with 
his heart as well as with his hat that he salutes her. About 
children, and all that relates to home, he is not less tender, and 
more than once speaks in apology of what he ca Is his so tness. 
He would have been nothing without that delightful weakness. 
It is that which gives his works their worth and his sty e its 
charm It. like his life, is full of faults and careless blunders ; 
and redeemed, like that, by his sweet and compassionate nature. 
We possess of poor Steele's wild and checkered ife some 
of the most curious memoranda that ever were left of a man s 
])ioara])!n- t Most men's h.tters, from Cicero down to W alpole 



lis 

11 ill 



^ - As lo t!,e Dursuits after affection and csteenu the foir sex ajx= happy ij. t 
particular, that with tlieni the one is much more '^^■'''^^- f^'f^.^''. ^^I'll'T. i. 



*46 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



or down to the great men of our own time, if you will, are do( 
tored compositions, and written with an eye suspicious towards*' 
posterity. That dedication of Steele's to his wife is an artifi- 

Jetters passed to Mr. Thomas, a grandson of a natural daughter of Steele's ; and part 
to Lady Trevor's next of kin, Mr. Sciirlock. They were published by the learned 
*Iichols — from whose later edition of them, in 1809, our specimens are quoted. 
Here we have him in his courtship — which was not a very long one : — 

" To Mrs. Scurlock. 

,, ^, " Au(r, 70, 1707. 

" Madam,— a j . / / 

•■ I BEG pardon that my paper is not tiner,but I am forced to write from a coffee- 
house, where I am attending about business. There is a dirty crowd of busy faces' 
all around me, talking of money ; while all my ambition, all my wealth, is love ! Love 
which animates my heart, sweetens my humor, enlarges my soul, and affects every 
action of my life. It is to my lovely charmer I owe, that many noble ideas are con- 
tinually affixed to my words and actions ; it is the natural effect of that generous 
passion to create in the admirer some similitude of the object admired. Thus, my 
dear, am I every day to improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, 
to that Heaven which made thee sucli ; and join with me to implore its influence on 
our tender innocent hours, and beseech the Author of love to bless the rites he has 
ordained — and mingle with our happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and 
a resignation to His will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavor to 
please Him and each other. 

" I am forever your faithful servant, 

" Rich. Steele." 

Some few hours afterwards, apparently, Mistress Scurlock received the next one 

—obviously written later in the day ! — 

«■ r^ T y.„ c- ■' Saturday Nis'ht (Anq. -xo, 1707). 

'' Dear Lovely Mrs. Scurlock, — -^ "^ \ ^ j > / // 

" I HAVE been in very good company, where your health, imder the character of 

the woman I loved best, has been often drunk ; so that I may say that I am dead 

drunk for your sake, which is more than I die for you. 

" Rich. Steele.'' 

"To Mrs. Scurlock. 
"Madam,- " ^./^. i, 1707. 

" It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend business. As 
for me, all who speak to me find me out, and 1 must lock myself up, or other people 
will do it for me. 

" A gentleman asked me this morning, ' What news from Lisbon .^ ' and I 
answered, ' She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know ' when I had 
]ast been at Hampton Court ? ' I replied, ' It will be on Tuesday come se'nnight.' 
Pr'ythee allow me at least to kiss your hand before that day, that my mind may be in 
some composure. O Love ! 

' A thousand torments dwell about thee, 
Yet who could live, to live without thee ? ' 

" Methinks I could write a volume to you ; but all the language on earth would 
fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion, 

" I am ever yours, 

" Rich. Steele." 

Two days after this, lie is found expounding his circumstances and prospects to 
tlie young lady's mamma. He dates from '' Lord Sunderland's office, Whitehall ; " 
and states his clear income at 1,025/. per annum. " I promise myself,'' says he, 
" the pleasure of an industrious and virtuous lite, in studying to do things agreeable 
to you." 

They were married, according to the most probable conjectures, about the 7th 



STEELE. 447 

cial performance, possibly ; at least, it is written with that de- 
gree of artifice which an orator uses in arranging a statement 
for the House, or a poet employs in preparing a sentiment in 

"September. There are traces of a tiff about the middle of the next month ; she 
being prudish and fidgety, as he was impassioned and reckless. General progress, 
however, may be seen from the following notes. The " house in Bury Street, St. 
James's," was now taken. 

" To Mrs. Steele. 

" Dearest Being on Earth,— " ^''^- ^^' ^^°^ 

" Pardon me if you do not see me till eleven o'clock, having met a schoolfellow 
from India, by whom I am to be informed on things this night which expressly 
concern your obedient husband, 

" Rich. Steele." 
" To Mrs. Steele. 

" Eight o' clock^ Fountain Tavern^ 
" My Dear,— O-ri". 22, 1707. 

" I BEG of you not to be uneasy ; for I have done a great deal of business to-day 
very successfully, and wait an hour or two about my Gazette.''^ 

« My dear, dear Wife,— " ^^'^- ^^' ^^o?- 

" I write to let you know I do not come home to dinner, being obliged to attend 
some business abroad, of which I shall give you an account (when 1 see you in the 
evening), as becomes your dutiful and obedient husband.'' 

'"'■ Devil Tavern, Temple Bar^ 
" Dear Prue,-— Jan. 3, 1707-8. 

" I HAVE partly succeeded in my business to-day, and 'inclose two guineas as 
earnest of more. Dear Prue, 1 cannot come liome to dinner. I languish for your 
welfare, and will never be a moment careless more. 

" Your faithful husband," &c. 

"Dear Wife,- " ">«. 14, 1707-8- 

" Mr. Edgecombe, Ned Ask, and Mr. Lumley have desired me to sit an hour 

with them at the ' George,' in Pall Mall, for which 1 desire your patience till twelve 

o'clock, and that you will go to bed," &c. 

,, ^ T, " Graves Inn, Feb. -x. 1708 

" Dear Prue,— -^ ' -' ' 

" If the man who has iny shoemaker's bill calls, let him be answered that I shall 

call on him as I come home. I stay here in order to get Jonson to discount a bill frr 

me, and shall dine with him for that end. He is expected at home every minute. 

Your most humble, obedient servant,'' &c. 

,, „ ,,. " Tennis-court Coffee-Jiotise . May 5, 1708. 

"Dear Wife,— -^ ' . 

" I HOPE I have done this day what will be pleasing to you ; in the meantime 
shall lie this night at a baker's, one Leg, over against the ' Devil Tavern,' at Charing 
Cross. I shall be able to confront the fools who wish me uneasy, and shall have the 
satisfaction to see thee cheerful and at ease. 

" If the printer'sTooy be at home, send him hither ; and let Mrs. Todd send by the 
boy my nightgown, slippers, and clean linen. You shall hear from me early in the 
mornmg," &c. 

Dozens of similar letters follow, with occasional guineas, little parcels of tea, or 
walnuts, &c. In 1709 the Tatler made its appearance. The following curious note 
dates April 7th, 1710 : — 

'• I inclose to you [• Dear Prue '] a receipt for the saucepan and spoon, and a note 
of 23/. of Lewis's, which will mak^ up the 50/. I promised for your ensuing occasion. 

'' I know no happiness in this life in any degree comparable to the pleasure I have 



^^g E. VOL rsH rn ^mokis ts. 

verse or for the stage. But there are some 400 letters of Dick 
Steele's to his wife, which that thrifty woman preserved accu- 
ratelv, and which could have been written but for her and her 
alone. They contain details of the business, pleasures, quar- 
r'els, reconciliations of the pair ; they have all the genuineness 
of conversation : they arc as artless as a child's prattle, and as 
confidential as a curiain-lecture. Some are written from the 
printini^ office, where he is waiting for the proof-sheets of his 
Gaze/U, or his Tatlcr ; some are written from the tavern, whence 
he j)romises to come to his wife ''within a pint of wine," and 
where he has given a rendezvous to a friend, or a money-lender: 
some are composed in a high state of vinous excitement, wlien 
his head is flustered with Burgundy, and his heart abounds with 
amorous warmth for his darling Prue : some are under the in- 
fluence of the dismal headache and repentance next morning : 
Some, alas, are from the lock-up house, where the lawyers have 
impounded him, and where he is wailing for bail. \'ou trace 
many vears of the poor fellow's career in these letters. In 
September, 1707, from which day she began to save the letters, 
Ik- married the beautiful IVfistress Scurlock. \'ou have passion- 
ate protestations to the lady ; his respectful ])roposals to her 
manuiia ; liis ])ri\ate prayer to Hcaxcn when the union so 
ardently desired was completed ; his fond professions of con- 
trition and promises of amendment, when, immediately after his 
marriage, there began to be just cause for the one and need for 
tiie other. 

(apiain Steele took a house for his lady upon their mar- 
riage. •• the third door from (iermain Street, left hand of Berry 
Sireet.'" and the next }ear he presented his wife with a country 
house at Hampton. It appears she had a chariot and pair, and 
^-vnetimes four horses : he himself enjoyed a little horse for his 
cnvn riding. He paid, or promised lo pay, his barber flfty 
pounds a year, and always went abroad in a laced coat and a 
large black l)uckled periwig, that must ha\e cost somebody 
lifly guineas. He was rather a well-to-do gentleman. Captain 
Steele, with the proceeds of his estates in Barbadoes (lefl to 
him by his flrst wife), his income as a writer of t-lie Gazette, and 

in your person and society. I only be,i; of you to add to your other charms .1 fearful- 
nsss to see a man that loves you in pain and uneasiness, to make me as happy as it is 
possible to he in this life. Risinjr a little in a mornincj, and being- disposed to a cheer- 
fulness * * » * would not bs amiss. 

In another, hj is found excusing his coming home,' beinc; '* invited to supper to 
Mr. Boyle's."' '• ])2ar J^riie." he savs on this occasion, " do not send after rue, for I 

slnll \,t r;d:.ulou.." 



his office, of gentleinai] waiter to his Royal Highness Trince 
George. His second wife brouglit him a fortune too. But it 
is melancholy to relate, that wdth these houses and chariots and 
horses and income, the Captain was constantly in want of 
money, for which his beloved bride was asking as constantly. 
In the course of a few pages we begin to find the shoemaker 
calling for n^oney, and some directions from the Captain, who 
has not thirty pounds to spare. He sends his wife, "the beau- 
tifullest object in the world," as he calls her, and evidently in 
reply to applications of her own, which have gone the way of 
all waste paper, and lighted Dick's pipes, w^hich were smoked 
a hundred and forty years ago— ^he sends his wife now a guinea, 
then a half-guinea, then a couple of guineas, then half a pound 
of tea ; and again no money and no tea at all, but a promise 
that his darling Prue shall have some in a day or two ; or a re- 
quest, perhaps, that she will send over his night-gown and 
shaving-plate to the temporary lodging wdiere the nomadic 
Captain is lying, hidden from the bailiffs. Oh ! that a Chris- 
tian hero and late Captain in Lucas's should be afraid of a 
dirty sheritFs ofhcer ! I'h.at tlie pink and pride of chivalry should 
turn pale before a writ ! It stands to record in poor Dick's 
own handwriting — the queer collection is preserved at the 
British Museum to this present day — that the rent of the nup- 
tial house in Jennyn Street, sacred to unutterable tenderness 
and Prue, and three doors from Bury Street, was not paid until 
after the landlord ]iad put in an execution on Captain Steele's 
furniture. Addison sold the liouse and furniture at Piampton, 
and, after deducting the sum in which his incorrigible friend 
was indebted to him, handed over the residue of the proceeds 
of the sale to poor Dick, who wasn't in the least angry at Addi- 
son's summary proceeding, and I dare say was, very glad of any 
sale or execution, the result of which was. to give him a little 
ready money. Having a small house in Jermyn Street for 
which he couldn't pay, and a country house at Hampton on 
which he had borrowed money, nothing must content Captain 
Dick but the taking, in 17 12, a much finer, larger, and grander 
house in Bloorasbury Square ; where his unhappy landlord got 
no better satisfaction than his friend in St. James's, and where 
it is recorded that Dick, giving a grand entertainment, had a 
haif-dozen queer-looking fellows in livery to wait upon his nobl<.> 
guests, and confessed tijat his ser\'ants were bailitts to a man. 
" I fared like a distressed prince,"* the kindly prodigal writes, 
generously complimenting .\ddison for his assistance in the 
Taih-r,—'"' I fared like :i distressed prince, who calls in n power 

1-0 



^ 2 o ENGLISH HUM OR IS TS. 

ful neighbor to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary ; when \ 
I had once called him in, I could not subsist without depen- 
dence on him." Poor, needy Prince of Bloomsbury ! think of 
him in his palace, with his allies from Chancery Lane ominously 
guarding him. 

All sorts of stories are told indicative of his restlessness and 
his good-humor. One narrated by Dr. Hoadly is exceedingly | 
characteristic ; it shows the life of the time : and our poor friend \ 
very weak, but very kind both in and out of his cups. j 

" My father," says Dr. John Hoadly, the Bishop's son, ^ 
"when Bishop of Bangor, was, by invitation, present at one of :■ 
the Whig meetings, held at the ' Trumpet,' in Shire Lane, when % 
Sir Richard, in his zeal, rather exposed himself, having the ^ 
double duty of the day upon him, as well to celebrate the im- ''\ 
mortal memory of King William, it being the 4th November, as^j 
to drink his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, whose "j 
phlegmatic constitution was hardly warmed for society by that \ 
time. Steele was not fit for it. Two remarkable circumstances] 
happened. John Sly, the hatter of facetious memory, was in \ 
the house ; and John, pretty mellow, took it into his head to \ 
come into the company on his knees, with a tankard of ale in \ 
his hand to drink off to the im7nortal 7?temo?'y, and to return in ^ 
the same manner. Steele, sitting next my father, whispered 1 
him — Do laugh. It is htimanity to laugh. Sir Richard, in the ■ 
evening, being too much in the same condition, was put into a '; 
chair, and sent home. Nothing would serve him but being | 
carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, late as it was. However, -j 
the chairman carried him home, and got him up stairs, when his \ 
great complaisance would wait on them down stairs, which he j 
did, and then was got quietly to bed." * \ 

There is another amusing story which, I believe, that re- \ 
nowned collector, Mr. Joseph Miller, or his successors, have • 
incorporated into their work. Sir Richard Steele, at a time \ 
when he was much occupied with theatrical affairs, built him- • 
self a pretty private theatre, and, before it was opened to his 1 
friends and guests, was anxious to try whether the hall was well ' 
adapted for hearing. Accordingly he placed himself in the j 
most remote part of the gallery, and begged the carpenter who ^ 
had built the house to speak up from the stage. The man at 1 
first said that he was unaccustomed to public speaking, and did ■ 
not know what to say to his honor ; but the good-natured knight ; 

\ 

* Of this famous Bishop, Steele wrote, — ^ 

" Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits, '. 

All faults he pardons, though he none commits." : 



3TEKLB. 451 

called out to him to say whatever was uppermost ; and, after a 
moment, the carpenter began, in a voice perfectly audible : "Sir 
Richard Steele ! " he said, " for three -months past me and my 
men has been a working in this theatre, and we've never seen 
the color of your honor's money: we will be very much obliged 
if you'll pay 'it directly, for until you do we won't drive m another 
nail." Sir Richard said that his friend's elocution was perfect, 
but that he didn't like his subject much. 

The great charm of Steele's writing is its naturalness. He 
wrote so quickly and carelessly, that he was forced to make the 
reader his confidant, and had not the time to deceive him. He 
had a small share of book-learning, but a vast acquaintance 
with the world. He had known men and taverns. He had 
lived with gownsmen, with troopers, with gentlemen ushers of 
the Court, with men and women of fashion ; with authors and 
wits with the inmates of the sponging-houses, and with the 
frequenters of all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town.^ He 
was liked in all company because he liked it ; and you like to 
see his enjoyment as you like to see the glee of a boxful ot 
children at the pantomime. He was not of those lonely ones 
of the earth whose greatness obliged them to be solitary ; on 
the contrarv, he admired, I think, more than any man who ever 
wrote • and full of hearty applause and sympathy, wins upon 
YOU by calling vou to share his delight and good-humor. His 
laudi rings through the whole house. He must have been in- 
valuable ct a tragedy, and have cried as much as the most 
tender young lady in the boxes. He has a relish for beauty 
and goodness wherever he meets it. He admired Snakspeare 
affectionately, and more than any man of his time ; and, accord- 
ing to his generous expansive nature, called upon all his 
company to like what he liked himself. He did not damn with 
faint praise : he was in the world and of it ; and his enjoyment oi 
life presents the strangest contrast to Swift's savage indignation 
and Addison's lonely serenity.* Permit me to read you a pas- 
sage from each writer, curiously indicative of his peculiar humor : 

* Here wc have some of his later letters :— 

" To Lady Steele. 
^ " Hnvtpton Court, March i6, I7i6-ir. 

^^•'^ t:jr>;u have written anything to me which I should have^eceive-' la.j 
nieht, I beg your pardon that I cannot answer tdl the nex post. * ^ * .,u^'°;' 
s?n at the present writing is mighty well employed m t^^'^l^^S °" \^.^f °° l^f ^XZ^ 
and sweeping the sand with a feather. He grows a most ^^^^S^^^/^' 9 ^ ^^^^ ^^.'^fj 
full of play and spirit. He is also a very great scholar : he can read hs ■»;^ .m 
I have brought down my Virgil. He makes most shrevvd "-^Y ^^^^'^^^'^J^'if ."'^^ j^ 
We are very intimate friends and playfellows. He begms to be xcrv ragged , and 



. . r, EJVG r. ISH JiUMOR IS TS. 

J 
the subject is the same, and the mood the very gravest. We J 
have said that upon all the actions of man, the most, trifling | 
and the most solemn, the humorist takes upon himself to com- / 
ment. All readers of our old masters know the terrible lines of 
Swift, in which he hints at his philosophy and describes the end 
of mankind : — *' 

'• Amazed, confused, its fate unknown. 
The world stood trembling at Jove's throne ; 
While each pale sinner hung his head, 
Jove, noddim:;^, shook the heavens and said : 

' dfi'endirig race of human kind. _\ 

By nature, reason, learning, blind ; • 

You who through frailty stepped aside : 

And you who never err'd through pride ; \ 

You who in different sects were shamm'd i 

And come to see each other damn'd ; '•. 

(So some folk told you, but they knew i 

No more of Jove's designs than you ;) ■; 
The world's "mad business now is o'er, 

And 1 resent your freaks no more ; '■ 

I to such l:)lGckheads set my wit, ; 

I damn such fools — go, go, you're bit ! ' " \ 

hope I shall be pardoned if I equip him with new clothes and frocks, or what Mrs, \ 
Evans and I shall think for his service.*' ''■ 

" To L.MJY .'^TEEH: . j 

[Undated.] '. 

•' You tell me you want a little flattery from n^c. I assure you 1 know no one who ! 

deserves so much commendation as yourself, and to whom saying the best things ; 

would be so little like flattery. The ti\ing speaks for itself, considering you as a very .^ 

handsomn woman tliat loves retire m?nt— one who does not want wit, and yet is ex- ; 

tremely sincere ; and so I could go through all the vices which attend the good cjual- ; 

ities of other people, of which 3'ou are exempt. But, indeed, though you have every 

perfection, you have an extravagant fault, which almost frustrates the good in you to i 

me; and that is, that you do not love to dress, to appear, to shine out, even at my re- i 

quest, and to make me proud of you, or rather to indulge the pride I have that you ! 

are muie. * * * * " 

" Your most affectionate, obsequious husband, j 

" Richard Steelu. \ 

" A quarter of Molly's schooling is paid. The children are perfectly well." j 

•' To Lady Steele. : 

My Dearest Prue, '■March 26, i-ji:. j 

'• I HAVE received yours, wherein you give mt; the. sensible affliction of t-'ll- j 

ing mc enow of the continual pain in your head. * * * * When I lay in your place, j 

and on your pillow, I assure you I fell into tears last night, to think that my charm- ■ 

ing little insolent might be then awake and in pain : and took it to be a sin to go to j 

sleep. I 

'' For this tender passion towards you I must h-^ contentod tliat your PruesJiip ! 

will condescend to call yourself my well-wisher. * * * * '■ . 

At tlie time when the above later letters were wriuen. I.ady Steele was in Wales, j 
lookhig after her estate there. Steele, about this time, was nnich occupied with a jjn- ; 
iect for conveying fish alive, by which, as he constantly assures his wife, he firmly !» : 
ii2ved he should make his fortune. It did not succeed, however. ! 

Lady Steele died in December of the succeeding year. .She lies buried in Wc-'t \ 
minster Abbey. ''■■ 

* Lord Chcstrrfield sends these verses ^o Voltaire in a cliaracteristic Icttrr. ■ 



Acklison, speaking on the same theme, but with how different 
a voice, says, in his famous paper on Westminster Abbey (Spec- 
iator, No. 26) : — " For my own part, though I am always serious, 
I do not know what it is to be melancholy, and can therefore 
take a view of rature in her deep and solemn scenes with the 
same pleasure a'fe in her most gay and delightful ones. When 
I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies 
within me ; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every in- 
ordinate desire goes out ; when I meet with the grief of parents 
on a tombstone, my heart melts v/ith compassion ; when I see 
tlie tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of 
grieving for those we must quickly follow." (I have owned 
that I do not think Addison's heart melted very much, or that 
he indulged very inordinately in the "vanity of grieving.") 
'"When," he goes on, "when .1 see kings lying by those who 
deposed them : when I consider rival wits placed side by side, 
or. the holy men that divided the world with their contests and 
disputes, — 1 reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little 
competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. And, when I 
read the several dates on the tombs of some that died yesterday 
and some 600 years ago, 1 consider tlint Great Day when we 
shall all of us be contemporaries, an.d make our appearance to- 
gether." 

Our third humorist comes to speak upon the same subject, 
"^'ou will have observed in the previous extracts the character- 
istic humor of each writer — the subject and the contrast — the 
factof J^eath. and the play of individual thought, by which each 
comments on it, and now hear the third writer — death, sorrow, 
and tlie grave being for the moment also his theme. '"The 
first sense of sorrow I e\er knew," Steele says in the Tatlei\ 
''was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not 
quite five years of age : but was rather amazed at what all the 
house meant, than possessed of a real understanding why no- 
body would play with us. I remember 1 went into the room 
wjiere his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I 
had my battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin, and 
calling papa ; for, I know not how, I had some idea that he 
was locked up there. My mother caught me in her arms, and, 
transported beyond all patience of the silent grief she was be- 
fore in, she almost smothered me in her embraces, and told me 
in a flood of tears. ' Papa could not hear me, and would play 
with me no more : for they were going to put him under ground, 
whence he would never come to us again.' .She was a very 
beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dij^mity in 



454 FNGLISH HUMORISTS. \ 

her grief amidst all. the wildness of her transport, which me- j 
thought struck me with an instinct of sorrow that, before I was ! 
sensible what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has j 
made pity the weakness of my heart ever since." 

Can there be three more characteristic moods of minds and .1 
men ? " Fools, do you know anything of this mystery ? " says | 
Swift, stamping on a grave, and carrying his scorn for mankind \ 
actually beyond it. " Miserable, purblind wretches, how dare ,; 
you to pretend to comprehend the Inscrutable, and how can | 
your dim eyes pierce the unfathomable depths of yonder bound- j 
less heaven t " Addison, in a much kinder language and 1 
gentler voice, utters much the same sentiment : and speaks of : 
the rivalry of wits, and the contests of holy men, with the same > 
skeptic placidity. " Look what a little vain dust we are," he ' 
says, smiling over the tombstones ; and catching, as is his wont, | 
quite a divine effulgence as he looks heavenward, he speaks, in | 
words of inspiration almost, of *' the Great Day, when we shall ^ 
all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance to- \ 
gether." \ 

The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who will speak i 
his word of moral as Heaven teaches him, leads you up to his \ 
father's coffin, and shews you his beautiful mother weeping, • 
and himself an unconscious little boy wondering at her side. 
His own natural tears flow as he takes your hand and con- \ 
fidingly asks your symj^athy. " See how good and innocent j 
and beautiful women are," he says ; " how tender little children ! J 
Let us love these and one another, brother — God knows we i 
have need of love and pardon." So it is each man looks with ■ 
his own eyes, speaks with his own voice, and prays his own ,' 
prayer. ; 

When Steele asks your sympathy for the actors in that \ 
charming scene of Love and Grief and Death, who can refuse ' 
it ? One yields to it as to the frank advance of a child, or to j 
the appeal of a woman. A man is seldom more manly than , 
when he is what you call unmanned — the source of his emotion ^ 
is championship, pity, and courage; the instinctive desire to ■; 
cherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those ■ 
who are tender and "weak. If Steele is not our friend he is '\ 
nothing. He is by no means the most brilliant of wits nor the '\ 
deepest of thinkers : but he is our friend : we love him, as j 
children love their love with an A, because he is amiable. Who ^ 
likes a man best because he is the cleverest or the wisest of •■; 
mankind ; or a woman because she is the most virtuous, or talks \ 
French, or plays the piano better than the rest of her sex ? I : 



STEELE. ^55 

own to liking Dick Steele the man, and Dick Steele the author, 
much better than much better men and much better authors. 

The misfortune regarding Steele is, that most part of the 
company here present must take his amiability upon hearsay, 
and certainly can't make his intimate acquaintance. Not that 
Steele was worse than his time ; on the contrary, a far better, 
truer, and higher-hearted man than most who lived in it. But 
things were done in that society, and names were named, whicii 
would make you shudder now. What would be the sensation 
of a polite youth of the present day, if at a ball he saw the 
young object of his affections taking a box out of her pocket 
and a pinch of snuff : or if at dinner, by the charmer's side, she 
deliberately put her knife into her mouth ? If she cut her 
mother's throat with it, mamma would scarcely be more shocked. 
I allude to these peculiarities of by-gone times as an excuse for 
my favorite, Steele, who was not worse, and often much more 
delicate than his neighbors. 

There exists a curious document descriptive of the manners 
of the last age, which describes most minutely the amusements 
and occupations of persons of fashion in London at the time of 
which we are speaking ; the time of Swift, and Addison, and 
Steele. 

When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Colonel Alwit, 
the immortal personages of Swift's polite conversation, came to 
breakfast with my Lady Smart, at eleven o'clock in the morn- 
ing, my Lord Smart was absent at the leve'e. His lordship was 
at home to dinner at three o'clock to receive his guests ; and 
we may sit down to this meal, like the Barmecide's, and see the 
fops of the last century before us. Seven of them sat down at 
dinner, and were joined by a country baronet who told them 
they kept court hours. These persons of fashion began their 
dinner with a sirloin of beef, fish, a shoulder of veal, and a 
tongue. My Lady Smart carved the sirloin, my Lady Answer- 
all helped the fish, and the gallant Colonel cut the shoulder of 
veal. All made a considerable inroad on the sirloin and the 
shoulder of veal with the exception of Sir John, who had no 
appetite, having already partaken of a beefsteak and two mugs 
of ale, besides a tankard of March beer as soon as he got out 
of bed. They drank claret, which the master of the house said 
should always be drunk after fish ; and my Lord Smart particu- 
larly recommended some excellent cider to my Lord Sparkish, 
which occasioned some brilliant remarks from that nobleman. 
When the host called for wine, he nodded to one or other of 
his guests, and said, " Tom Neverout, my service to you." 



^-5 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

After the first course came almond-pudding, fritters, which 
the Colonel took with his hands out of the dish, in order \.<s 
help the brilliant Aliss Notable ; chickens, black puddings, and 
soup ; and Lady Smart, the elegant mistress of the mansion 
finding a skewer in a dish, placed it in her plate with direction 
that it should be carried down to the cook and dressed for the 
cook's own dinner. Wine and small beer were drunk during; 
this second course ; and when the Colonel called for Ix'er, lie l 
called the butler Friend, and asked whether the beer was gopd/j 
Various jocular remarks passed from the gentlefolks to the j 
servants; at breakfast several persons had a word and a joke ^ 
for Mrs. Bet^y, my lady's maid, who warmed the cream and had'^ 
charge of the canister (the tea cost thirty shillings a pound in;j 
those days). When my Lady Sparkish sent her footman out 16 | 
my Lady INlalch to come at six o'clock and play at quadrille, J 
hef ladyship warned the man to follow his nose, and if he fell j 
by the way not to stay to get up again. And when the gentle- ''i 
men asked the hall-porter if his lady was at home, that func- ^ 
tionary replied, with manly waggishness, " She was at home "; 
just now, but she's not gone out yet." . \ 

vVfter the puddings, sweet and black, the fritters and soup, ; 
came the third course, of which the chief dish was a hot vensioR ■ 
pasty, which was put before Lord Smart, and carved by that i 
nobleman. Besides the pasty, there was a hare, a rabbit, some- 
pigeons, partridges, a goose, and a ham. Beer and wine were i 
freely imbibed during this course, the gentlemen always pledging \ 
somebody with every glass which they drank : and by tliis time \ 
the conversation between Tom Neverout and IMiss Notnble had] 
grown so brisk and lively, that the Derbyshire baronet began to ! 
think the young gentlewoman was Tom's sweetheart ; on which ; 
Miss remarked, that she loved Tom " like pie." After the goose, j 
some of the gentlemen took a dram of brandy, " which was j 
very good for the wholesomes," Sir John said ; and now having'' 
had a tolerably substantial dinner, honest Lord Smart bade the ■ 
butler bring up the great tankard full of October to Sir John, j 
The great tankard was passed from hand to hand and mouth to I 
mouth, but when j^ressed by the noble host upon the gallant^ 
Tom Neverout, he said, " No, faith, my lord ; I like your wine, ; 
and won't put a churl upon a gentleman. Your honor's claret ■ 
is good enough for me." And so, the dinner over, the host ; 
said, "Hang saving, bring us up a ha'porth of cheese." '; 

The cloth was now taken away, and a bottle of burgundy^ 
was set down, of which the ladies were invited to partake before j 
they went to their tea. When they withdrew, tlie gentlemen ; 



promised to join them in an hour : fresh bottles were brought ; 
the "dead men," meaning the empty bottles, removed ; and 
" D'you hear, John? bring clean glasses," my Lord Smart said. 
On which the gallant Colonel Alwit said, " I'll keep my glass ; 
for wine is the best liquor to wash glasses in." 
,;_ ■ After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, and then 
they all sat and played quadrille until three o'clock in the 
morning, when the chairs and the flambeaux came, and this 
noble company went to bed. 

Such were manners six or seven score years ago. I draw 
no inference from this queer picture — let all moralists here 
present deduce their own. Fancy the moral condition of thai: 
society in which a lady of fashion joked with a footman, and 
carved a sirloin, and provided besides a great shoulder of veal, 
a goose, hare, rabbit, chickens, partridges, black puddings, and 
a ham for a dinner for eight Christians. What — what could 
have been the condition of that polite. world in which people 
openly ate goose after almond-pudding, and took their soup in 
the middle of dinner ? Fancy a Colonel in the Guards putting 
liis hand into a dish of beigncts ifabricot, and helping his neigh- 
bor, a young lady //// nionde ! Fancy a noble lord calling out 
to the servants, before the ladies at his table, " Hang expense, 
bring us a ha'portli of cheese ! " Such were the ladies of Saint 
James's — such were the frequenters of ''White's Chocolate- 
House," when Swift used to visit it, and Steele described it as 
the centre of pleasure, gallantry, and entertainment, a hundred 
and forty years ago ! 

Dennis, who ran amuck at the literary society of this day, 
falls foul of poor Steele, and thus depicts him : — '* Sir John 

Edgar, of the county in Ireland, is of a middle stature, 

broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the picture of some- 
body over a farmer's chimney — a short chin, a short nose, a 
short forehead, a broad flat face, and a dusky countenance. 
Yet wdth such a face and sudi a shape, he discovered at sixty 
that he took himself for a beauty, and appeared to be more 
mortified at being told that he was ugly, than he was by any 
reflection made upon his honor or understanding. 

'* He is a gentleman born, witness iiim.self, of \ery honor- 
able family ; certainly of a very ancient one, for iiis ancestors 
flourished in Tipperary long before the English ever set foot in 
Ireland. He has testimony of this more authentic than the 
Herald's Office, or any human testimony. For God has 
marked him more abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped 
his native country on his face, his understanding, his writings, 



45$ ENGLISN HUMORISTS. 

his actions, his passions, and, above all, his vanity. The 
Hibernian brogue is still upon all these, though long habit and 
length of clays have worn it off his tongue." * 

Although this portrait is the work of a man who was neither 
the friend of Steele nor of any other man alive, yet there is a 
dreadful resemblance to the original in the savage and exag- 
gerated traits of the caricature, and everybody who knows him 
must recognize Dick Steele. Dick set about almost all the f 
undertakings of his life with inadequate means, and, as he \ 
took and furnished a house with the most generous intentions 
towards his friends, the most tender gallantry towards his wife, 
and with this only drawback, that he had not wherewithal to pay 
the rent when quarter-day came, — so, in his life he proposed to 
himself the most magnificent schemes of virtue, forbearance, | 
public and private good, and the advancement of his own and | 
the national religion ; but when he had to pay for these articles;] 
— so difficult to purchase and so costly to maintain— pootj 
Dick's money was not forthcoming : and when Virtue calledi 
with her little bill, Dick made a shuffling excuse that he couldj 
not see her that morning, having a headache from being tipsy] 
overnight ; or when stern Duty rapped at the door with his ac-| 
count, Dick was absent and not ready to pay. He was shirk- 

', 

* Steele replied to Dennis in an " Ansv/er to a Whimsical Pamphlet, called the^ 
Character of Sir John Edgar." What Steele had to say against the cross-grained old" 
Critic discovers a great deal of humor : — 

" Thou never didst let the sun into thy 'garret, for fear he should bring a bailiff 
along with him. * * * * 

" Your years are about sixty-five, an ugly, vinegar face, that if you had any com-i' 
mand you would be obeyed out of fear, from your ill-nature pictured there ; not from ^ 
any other motive. Your heiglit is about some five feet five inches. You see I can 'i, 
give your exact measure as well as if I had taken your dimension with a good cudgel, I 
which I promise you to do as soon as ever I have the good fortune to meet you. * * *^; 

" Your doughty paimch stands before you like a firkin of butter, and your duck ^i 
legs seem to be cast for carrying burdens. J 

" Thy works are libels upon others, and satires upon thyself ; and while they barkJ 
at men of sense, call him knave and fool that wrote them. Thou hast a great anti- ^ 
pathy to thy own species ; and hates the sight of a fool but in thy glass." "vj 

Steele had been kind to Dennis, and once got arrested on account of a pecuniary f. 
service which he did him. When John heard of tlie fact — " S'dcath ! " cries John ;i 
'■ why did not he keep out of the way as I did ? " i 

The " Answer " concludes by mentioning that Cibber had offered Ten Pounds for ] 
the discovery of the authorship of Dennis's pamphlet ; on which, says Steele, — " lam ^ 
only sorry he has offered so much, because Wxs^Hvcnticth part would have over-valued ;i 
his whole carcase. But 1 know the fellow that he keeps to give answers to his cred-.^ 
itors will betray him ; for he gave me his word to bring officers on top of the house { 
that should make a hole through the ceiling of his garret, and so bring him to the pun-{.j 
ishment he deserves. Some people think this expedient out of the way, and that he '• 
would make his escape upon hearing the least noise. I say so too ; but it takes him •' 
up half an hour every night to fortify himself with his old hair trunk, two or three J 
joint-stools, and some other lumber, which he ties together with cords so fast that it ' 
takes him up the same time in the morning to release himself." J 



STEELE. 459 

ing at the tavern ; or had some particidar business (of some- 
body's else) at the ordinary ; or he was in hiding, or worse than 
in hiding, in the lock-up house. What a situation for a man ! 
— for a philanthropist — for a lover of right and truth — for a 
magnificent designer and schemer ! Not to dare to look in the 
face the Religion which he adored and which he had offended : 
to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the 
friend whom he loved and who had trusted him ; to have the 
house which he had intended for his wife, whom he loved pas- 
sionately, and for her ladyship's company which he wished to 
entertain splendidly, in the possession of a bailiff's man ; with 
a crowd of little creditors, — grocers, butchers, and small-coal 
men — lingering round the door with their bills and jeering at 
him. Alas ! for poor Dick Steele ! For nobody else, of course. 
There is no man or woman in our time who makes fine projects 
and gives them up from idleness or want of means. When 
Duty calls upon us, we no doubt are always at home and ready 
to pay that grim tax-gatherer. Wlien we are stricken with re- 
morse and promise reform, we keep our promise, and are never 
angry, or idle, or extravagant any more. There are no cham- 
bers in our hearts, destined for family friends and affections, 
and now occupied by some Sin's emissary and bailiff in posses- 
sion. There are no little sins, shabby peccadilloes, importu- 
nate remembrances, or disappointed holders of our promises to 
reform, hovering at our steps, or knocking at our door ! Of 
course not. We are living in the nineteenth century; and 
poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up again, and got into jail 
and out again, and sinned and repented, and loved and suffered, 
and lived and died, scores of years ago. Peace be with him ! 
Let us think gently of one who was so gentle : let us speak 
kindly of one w^hose own breast exuberated with human kind- 
ness. 



46o EXCL isn in ' MORIS vs. 



PRIOR, GA\\ AXD POPE. I 

Matthew Prior was one of those famous and lucky wits of j 
the auspicious reign of Queen Anne, whose name it behoves us j 
not to pass over. Mat was a world-philosopher of no small > 
genius, good nature, and acumen.* He loved, he drank, he i 
sang. He describes himself, in one of his lyrics, '' in a little ; 
Dutch chaise on a Saturday night ; on his left hand his Horace, ■ 
and a friend on his right," going out of town from the Hague to ^ 
pass that evening, and the ensuing Sunday, boozing at a Spiel- ] 
haus with his companions, perhaps bobbing for perch in a j 
Dutch canal, and noting down, in a strain and with a grace not j 
unworthy of his Epicurean master, the charms of his idleness, \ 
his retreat, and his Batavian Chloe. A vintner's son in White- ^ 
hall, and a distinguished pupil of Busby of the Rod, Prior at- \ 
tracted some notice by writing verses at St. John's College, { 

* (lay calls him — "' Dear Prior * * * * beloved by ever\- muse.'' — Mr.Pofe's 
Welcome from Greece. \ 

Swift and Prior were very intimate, and he is frequently mentioned in the J 
" Journal to Stella.'' " Mr. Prior,'" says Swift, '• walLs to make hhnself fat, and I to I 
keep myself down. * * * * v\''e often wallc round tlie park together." 

h\ Swift's works there is a curious tract called '• Remarks on tlie Characters of 
the Cyjurt of Queen Anne " [Scott's edition, vol. xii.] The " Remarks " are not by 
the Dean ; but at the end of each is an addition in italics from his hand, and these are I, 
always characteristic. Thus, to the Duke of Marlborough, he adds, '' Detest abh\ 
((Tjrtoics,'" &c. Prior is thus noticed — 

" iSI.VTTHEW Prior, Esq., Commissioner of-Trade. 
" On the Queen's accession to the throne, he was continued in his office; is very!! 
well at court with tlic ministry, and is an entire creature of my Lord Jersey's, whom! 
he supports by his advice ; is one of the best poets in Enf^land, but very facetious in I 
conversation. .\ thin, iiolloxv-looking man, turn..'d of fortv years old. This is near \ 
the truth:^ \ 

'• Yet counting as far as to fifty his years, ! 

His virtues and vices were as other men's are. 
^ High hopes he conceived and ho smothered great fears, 
In a life party-coloured— half pleasure, half care. 

•' Not to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave, \ 

He stro\ e to make interest and freedom agree ; | 

In public employments industrious and grave, ] 

And alone with his friends, Lord, how merry was he ! ] 

" Now in equipage stately, now humble on fool. ■ 

Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust ; •! 

And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about' -j 

He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust.'^ ' 

Prior's Po-ms. [For my awn monument.] s 



PRIOR. GAW AND POPE. 



461 



"ambridge, and, coming" up to town, . .^ 

ttack on the noble old English lion John Dryden ; in ridicule 

•f whose work, " The Hind and the Panther," he brought ©ut 

hat remarkable and famous burlesque, "The Town and 

Country Mouse. '" Aren't you all acquainted with it ? Have 

ou not all got it by heart ? What ! have you never heard of it ? 

ee what fame is iirade of ! The wonderful part of the satire 

vas, that, as a natural consequence of " The Town and Country 

vlouse,*' Matthew Prior was made Secretary of Embassy at the 

lague 1 I belie\ e it is dancing, rather than singing, which 

listinguishes the young English diplomatists of the present 

lay ; and have seen them in various parts perform that part of 

heir duty very finely. In Prior's time it appears a different 

iccomplishment led to preferment. Could you write a copy of 

Alcaics ? that was the question. Could you turn out a neat 

epigram or two ? Could you compose " The Town and Country 

Mouse ? " It is manifest that, by the possession of this faculty, 

;he most difficult treaties, the laws of foreign nations, and the 

nterests of our own, are easily understood. Prior rose in the 

liplomatic service, and said good things that proVed his sense 

md his spirit. When the apartments at Versailles were shown 

:o him, with the victories of Louis XIV. painted on the walls, 

md Prior was asked whether the palace of the King of England 

lad any such decorations, " The monuments of my master's 

ictions," Mat said, of William whom he cordially revered, " are 

to be seen everywhere except in his own house." Bravo, Mat ! 

Prior rose to be full ambassador at Paris, f where he somehow 

was cheated out of his ambassadorial plate ; and in an heroic 

poem, addressed by him to her late lamented Majesty, Queen 

Anne, Mat makes some magnificent allusions to these dishes 

and spoons, of which Fate had deprived him. All that he 

* " They joined to produce a parody, entitled the ' Town and Country Mouse,' 
part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify his old friends, Smart and Johnson, 
by repeating to them. The piece is therefore founded upon the twice-told jest of tly* 
'Rehearsal.' * * * There is nothing new or original in the idea. * * * In this 
piece, Prior, though the younger man, seems to have had by far the largest share."— 
iscoxr's Dryden, vol. i. p. 330. 

t " He was to have been in the same commission with the Duke of Shrewsbury, 
but that that nobleman,"' says Johnson, " refused to be associated with one so meanly 
born. Prior therefore continued to act without a title till the Duke's return next yeaj 
to England, and then he assumed the style and dignity of ambassador." 

He had been thinking of slights of this sort when he wrote his Epitaph : — 

" Nobles and heralds, by your leave. 

Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, 
The son of Adam and of Eve ; 

Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher ? " 

But, ill this case, the old prejudice got the belter of the old jok<^ 



462 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

w^ts, he says, is her Majesty's picture ; without that he can't, 
be happy. 

" Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore : 
Thee, Queen of Peace, if Time and Fate have power 
Higher to raise the glories of thy reign, 
In words sublimer and a nobler strain 
May future bards the mighty theme rehearse. 
Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, 
The votive tablet I suspend.'' 

With that word the poem stops abruptly. The votive tablet 
is suspended for ever, like Mahomet's coffin. News came that 
the Queen was dead. Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, 
were left there, hovering to this day, over the votive tablet. 
The picture was never got, any more than the spoons and 
dishes : the inspiration ceased, the verses were hot wanted — 
the ambassador wasn't wanted. Poor Mat was recalled from 
his embassy, suffered disgrace along with his parents, lived 
under a sort of cloud ever after, and disappeared in Essex. 
When deprived of all his pensions and emoluments, the hearty 
and generous Oxford pensioned him. They played for gallant 
stakes — the bold men of those days — and lived and gave 
splendidly. 

Johnson quotes from Spence a legend, that Prior, after 
spending an evening with Harley, St. John, Pope, and Swift, \ 
would go off and smoke a pipe with a couple of friends of his, 1 
a soldier and his wife, in Long Acre. Those who have not 1 
read his late Excellency's poems should be warned that they ] 
smack not a little of the conversation of his Long Acre friends. ! 
Johnson speaks lightly of his lyrics ; but with due deference to j 
the great Samuel, Prior's seem to be amongst the easiest, the * 
richest, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical 
poems.* Horace is always in his mind : and his song, and his 

* His epigrams have the genuine sparkle : 

" The Remedy worse than the Disease. 

" I sent for Radcliff ; was so ill. 

That other doctors gave me over : , 

He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill, 
And I was likely to recover. 

" But when the wit began to wheeze, 

And wine had warmed the politician, 
Cured yesterday of my disease, 

I died last night of my physician." 



** Yes, every poet is a fool ; 

By demonstration Ned can show it ; 
Happy could Ned's inverted rule 
Prove every fool to be a poet." 



PRIOR, GA Y, AND POPE. 463 

philosophy, his good sense, his happy easy turns and melody, 
his loves and his Epicureanism bear a great resemblance to that 
most delightful and accomplished master. In reading his 
works, one is struck with their modern air, as well as by their 
happy similarity to the songs of the charming owner of the 
Sabine farm. In his verses addressed to Halifax, he says, 
writing of that endless theme to poets, the vanity of human 
iwishes — 

" So whilst in fevered dreams we sink, 
And waking, taste what we desire, 
The real draught but feeds the fire, 
The dream is better than the drink. 

" Our hopes like towering falcons aim 
At objects in an airy height : 
To stand aloof and view the flight, 
Is all the pleasure of the game.'' 

Woftld not you fancy that a poet of our own days was sing- 
ing? and in the verses of Chloe weeping and reprocxhing him 
for his inconstancy, where he says — 

" The God of us versemen, you know, child, the Sun, 
How, after his journeys, he sets up his rest. 
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run, 
At night he. declines on his Thetis's breast. 

' ' So, when I am wearied with wandering all day, - 
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come : 
No matter what beauties I saw in my way ; 

They were but my visits, but thou art my home ! 

" Then finish, dear Chloe. this pastoral war- 
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree . 
I For thou art a girl as much brighter tha*"' He,r, 

As he was a poet subhmer than me.'' 

If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Mof>re study Prior ? 
Love and pleasure finds singers in all days. Roses are always 
blowing and fading — to-day as in that pretty time when Prior 
sang of them, and of Chloe lamenting their decay — 

" She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers 
Pointing, the lovely moralist said : 

" On his death-bed poor Lubin lies, 
His spouse is in despair ; 
With frequent sobs and mutual cries. 
They both express their care. 

"* A different cause,' says Parson Sly, 
' Tlie same effect may give ; 
Poor Lubin fears that he shali «iie, 
His wife that lie mav live.' " 



464 ENGLISH IJUMORIS7S, 

See, friend, in some few fleeting hours, 
See yonder what a change is made ! 

"Ah me ! the blooming pride of May 
And that of Beauty are but one : 
At morn both flourish, bright and gay, 
Both fade at evening, pale and gone. 

" At dawn poor Stella danced and sung, 
The amorous youth around her bowed : 
At night licr fatal knell was rung ; 
I saw, and kissed her in her shroud. 

" Such as she is who died to-day, 
Such I, alas, may be to-morrow . 
Go, Damon, bid thy Muse display 
The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow.'' 

Damon's knell was rung in 172 1. May his turf lie lightl}) 
on him. Deus sit propitius hui'c potatori, as Walter de Mapes 
sang.* Perhaps Samuel Johnson, who spoke slightly of Prior's 

* '-Prior to Sir Thomas Hanmer. 

" Dear Sir,— '' Aicg. 4, 1709. 

"Friendship may live, I grant you, without being fed and cherished by cor-* 
respondence ; but with that additional beneiit 1 am of opinion it will look more cheerw 
ful and thrive better : for in this case, as in love, though a man is sure of his owu| 
constancy, yet his happiness depends a good deal upon the sentiments of another, and 
while you and Chloe are alive, -'tis not enough that I love you both, except I am sure' 
you both love me again ; and as one of her scrawls fortifies my mind more against 
affliction than all fLpictetus, v/ith Simplicius's comments into the bargain, so your' 
single letter gave ane more real pleasure than all the works of Plato. * ''* * * *' 
I must return my answer to your very kind question concerning my health. The 
Bath waters have done a good deal towards the recoverv of it, and the^ great specific, 
Cape cal'allicin,\\\\\,l think, confirm it. Upon this 'head I must tell vou that my 
mare Betty grows blind, and niay one dav, by breaking mv neck, perfect my cure : if 
at Rixam fair any pretty nagg that is between thirteen and fourteen hands presented 
Inmself, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of your servants mi oht 
ride him to Euston, and I might receive liim there. This, sir, is just as such a thfng 
happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her 
goings and is not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me too 
You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and honor, when I dare put two such 
commissions in your hand. * * * '^ ''—T/ic Hanmer Correspondence, ix 120. 

"From Mr. Prior. 

"My dear Lord and Friend,— '' Paris, ist~i2th May, 1714. 

'; Matthew never had so great occasion to write a word to Henry as now : it 
is noised here that I am soon to return. The question that I wish I could answer to 
the many that ask, and to our friend Colbert de Torcy (to whom I made your compli- 
ments m the manner you commanded) is, what is done for me ; and to what I am re- 
called .; It may look like a bagatelle, what is to become of a philosopher like me ? 
but It is not such : what is to become of a person who had the honor to be chosen, 
and sent hither as intrusted, in the midst of a war, with what the Oueen designed should 
make the peace ; returning with the Lord Bohngbroke, one ot"' the greatest men in 
Lngland, and one ot the finest heads in Europe (as thev say here, if true or not, 
n'lmporte) ; having been left by him in the oreatest character '(that of her Majesty's 
Pienipotentiary), exerasmg that power conjointly with the Duke of Shrewsburv, and 
solely after his departure ; having here received more distinguished honor than any 
Minister, e.\cept an Ambassador, ever did, and some which were never given to any 



PRIOR, GA\\ AXD POPE. 46 ^ 

verses, enjoyed them more than he was wilHng to own. The old 
moralist had studied them as well as Thomas Moore, and de- 
fended them, and showed that he remembered them very well too, 
on an occasion when their morality was called in question 
by that noted puritan, James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck.'**' 
In the great society of the wits, John Gay deserved to be a 

but who had that character ; having had all the success that could be expected ; 
having (God be thanked !) spared no pains, at a time wlien at home the peace is voted 
safe and lionorable — at a time when the Earl of Oxford is Lord Treasurer and Lord 
Bolingbroke First Secretary of State ? This unfortunate person, I say, neglected, 
forgot, unnamed to anything that may speak the Queen satisfied with his services, or 
his friends concerned as to his fortune. 

'•' Mr. de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the other day, by a pity that 
' wounded me deeper than ever did the cruelty of the late Lord Godolphin. He said 
he would write to Robin and Harry about me. God forbid, my lord, that I should 
need any foreign intercession, or owe the least to any Frenchman living, besides the 
decency of behavior and the returns of common civility : some say I am to go to 
Baden, others that I am to be added to the Commissioners for settling the commerce. 
In all cases 1 am ready, but in the meantime, die aliqnid de iribris capdiis. Neither 
of these two are, 1 presume, lionors or rewards, neither of them (let me say to my 
dear Lord Bolingbroke, and let him not be angry with me,) are what drift may aspire 
to, and what Mr. Whitworth, who was his fellow-clerk, has or may possess. 1 am far 
from desiring to lessen the great merit of the gentleman I named, for I heartily esteem 
and love hinr ; but in this trade of ours, my lord, in which you are the general, as in 
that of the soldiery, there is a certain right acquired by time and long service. You 
would do anything if or your Queen's service, but you would not be contented to de- 
scend, and be degraded to a charge, no way proportioned to that of Secretary of State 
any more than Mr. Ross, thougli'he would charge a party with a halberd in his banc 
would be content all his life after to be Sergeant. Was my Lord Dartmouth, from 
Secretary, returned again to be Commissioner of Trade, or from Secretary of War, 
would Fr:.nk Gwyn think himself kindly used to be returned again to be Commis- 
sioner ? In short, my lord, you have i^ut me above myself, and if I am to return to 
myself, I shall return to something very discontented and uneasy. I am sure, my 
lord, you will make the best use you can of this hint for my good. If I am to have 
anything, it will certainly be for Her Majesty's service, and the credit of my friends 
in the Ministry, that it be done before I am recalled from home, lest the world may 
think either that I have merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare not stand by me. If 
nothing is to be done, fiat voluntas Dei. I have writ to Lord Treasurer upon this 
subject, and having implored your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last re- 
monstrance of this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my lord ; all honor, health 
and pleasure to you. *• Yours ever. Matt." 

" P.S. — Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your healths together in 
usquebaugh after cur tea : we' are the greatest friends alive. Once more adieu. 
There is 'no such thing as the 'Book of Travels' you mentioned; if there be, let 
friend Tilson send us niore particular account of them, for neither I nor Jacob Tonson 
. can find them. Pray send Barton back to me, I hope with some comfortable tidings." 
— Bolingbroke'' s Letters. 

* " i asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire ; Joimson said they 

' were. I mentioned Lord Hales' censure of Prior in his preface to a collection of 

, sacred poems, by various hands, published by liim at Edinburgh a great many years 

ago, where he mentions ' these impure talcs, which will be (he eternal opprobnum_ of 

their ingenious author.' Johnson: ' Sir Lord Hales has forgot. There is nothmg 

, in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hales thinks there is, he must be rnore 

; combustible than other people. ' I instanced the tale of ' Paulo Purganti and his wife.' 

Johnson : ' Sir, there is nothing there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when 

■ poor Paulo was out of pocket. \'o, sir. Prior is a lady's book. No lady }s ashamed 

to have it standing in her librarv."'— Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

■ ' 30 

1 - 



^66 EiVGLISH HUMORISTS. 

favorite, and to have good a place.* In his set all were fond ot 
him. His success offended nobody. He missed a fortune 
once or twice. He was talked of for court favor, and hoped to 
win it ; but the court favor jilted him. Craggs gave him some 
South Sea Stock ; and at one time Gay had very nearly made 
his fortune. But Fortune shook her swift wings and jilted him 
too ; and so his friends, instead of being angry with him, and jeal- 
ous of him, were kind and fond of honest Gay. In the portraits of 
the literary worthies of the early part of the last century. Gay's t 
face is the pleasantest perhaps of all. It appears adorned with 
neither periwig nor nightcap (the full dress and negligee of 
learning, without which the painters of those days scarcely ever 
portrayed wits), and he laughs at you over his shoulder with an. 
honest boyish glee — an artless sweet humor. He was so kind, 
so gentle, so jocular, so delightfully brisk at times, so dismally 
wobegone at others, such a natural good creature that the 
Giants loved him. The great Swift was gentle and sportive 
with him,t as the enormous Brobdingnag maids of honor were 
with little Gulliver. He could frisk and fondle round Pope,$. 
and sport, and bark, and caper, without offending the most 

* Gay was of an old Devonshire family, but his pecuniary prospects not being great, ! 
was placed in his youth in the liouse of a silk-mercer in London. He was born in " 
1688 — Pope's year, and in 1712 the Duchess of Monmouth made him her secretary. [ 
Next year he published his " Rural Sports," which he dedicated to Pope, and so made j 
an acquaintance, which became a memorable friendship. \ 

" Gay," says Pope, *' was quite a natural man, — wholly without art or design, and j 
spoke just what he thought and as he thought it. He dangled for twenty years alwut .; 
a court, and at last was offered to be made usher to the young princesses. Secretary i 
Craggs made Gay a present of stock in the South Sea year ; and he was once worth \ 
20,000/., but lost it all again. He got about 400/. by the first ' Beggar's Opera,' and j 
1,100/. oiM, 200/. by the second. He was negligent and a bad nianager. Latterly, '; 
the Duke of Queensbury took his money into his keeping, and let him only have what ' 
was necessary out of it, and, as he lived with them, he could not have occasion for ' 
much. He died worth upwards of 3,000/.'' — Pope. Spence's Ajiecdotes. ; 

t " Mr. Gay is, in all regards, as honest and sincere a man as ever I knew.'' — i 
Swift, To Lady Betty Gertnamc, Jan. 1733. 

\ " Of manners gentle, of affections mild ; < 

In wit a man ; simplicity, a child ; ! 

With native humor temp' ring virtuous rage, ' 

Form'd to delight at once and lash the age ; • 

Above temptation in a low estate, ' 

And uncorrupted e'en among the great : i 

A safe companion, and an easy friend, 1 

Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. i 

These are thy honors ; not that here tliy bust i 

Is mixed with heroes, or with kings thy dust ; j 

But that the worthy and the good sliall say, i 

Striking their pensive bosoms, ' Here lies Gay.' " ' 

Pope's Epitaph on Gay. t 

" A hare who, in a civil way, i 

Complied with everything, like Gav." 

FableSy " The Hare and many Pri'ends * I 



PRIOR, GA Y, AXD POPE. ^67 

thin-skinned of poets and men ; and when he was jilted in that 
little court affair of which we have spoken, his warm-hearted 
patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry* (the " Kitty, 

* '■ I can give you no account of Gay," says Pope, curiously, "since lie was raffled 
for, and won back by his Ducliess." — Works ^ Roscoe^s Ed., vol. ix. p. ^,92. 

Here is the letter Pope wrote to him when the death of Queen Anne brought back 
Lord Clarendon from Hanover, and lost him the Secretaryship of that nobleman, of 
which he had had but a short tenure. 

Gay's court prospects were never happy from this time. — His dedication of the 
''• Shepherd's Week " to Bolingliroke, Swift used to call the " original sin " which had 
hurt him witli the house of Hanover : — 

" Dear Mr. Gay,— " '^'^^- ^3; i7M- 

" Welcome to your native soil ! welcome to your friends ! thrice welcome to 
me ! whether returned in glory, blest with court interest, the love and familiarity of 
the great, and filled with agreeable hopes ; or melancholy with dejection, contempla- 
tive of the changes of forti-.ne, and doubtful for the future ; whether returned a 
triumphant Whig or a desponding Tory, equally all hail ! equally beloved and wel- 
come to me ! If happy, I am to partake in your elevation ; if unhappy, you have still 
a warm corner in my heart and a retreat at Binfield in the worst of times at your 
service. If you are a Tory, or thought so by any man, 1 know it can proceed from 
nothing but your gratitude to a few people who endeavored to serve you, and wliose 
politics were never your concern. If you are a Whig, as I rather hope, and as I think 
your principles and mine (as brother poets) had ever a bias to the side of liberty, I 
know you will be an honest man and an inoffensive one. Upon the whole, I know you 
are incapable of being so mucli of either party as to be good for nothing. Therefore, 
once more, whatever you are or in whatever state you are, all hail ! 

" One or two of your old friends complained they had heard nothing from you since 
the Queen's death ; 1 told them no man living loved Mr. Gay better than I, yet 1 had 
not once written to him in all his voyage. This I thought a convincing proof how 
truly one may be a friend to another without telling him so every month. But they 
had reasons, too, themselves to allege in your excuse, as men who really value one 
another will never want such as make their friends and themselves easy. The late 
universal concern in public affairs threw us all into a hurry of spirits : even I, who am 
more a philosopher than to expect anything from any reign, was borne away with 
the current, and full of the expectation of the successor. During your journeys, I 
knew not whither to aim a letter after you ; that was a sort of shooting flying : add to 
this the demand Homer had upon me, to write fifty verses a day, besides learned notes, 
all which are at a conclusion for this year. Rejoice with me, 6 my friend ! that my 
labor is over ; come and make m.erry with me in much feasting. We will feed among 
the lilies (by the lilies I mean the ladies). Are not the Rosalindas of Britain as charm- 
ing as the Blousalindas of the Hague '{ or have the two great Pastoral poets of our 
nation renounced love at the same time ? for Philips, immortal Philips, hath deserted, 
yea, and in a rustic manner kicked his Rosalind. Dr. Parnell and I have been insep- 
arable ever since you went. We are now at the Bath, where (if you are not, as 1 
heartily hope, better engaged) your coming would be the greatest pleasure to us in the 
world. Talk not of expenses : Homer shall support his children. I beg a line from 
you, directed to the Post-house in Bath. Poor Parnell is in an ill stateof health. 

" Pardon me if 1 add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write something on 
the King, or Prince, or Princess. On whatsoever foot you may be with tlie court, 
this can-do no harm. I shall never know where to end, and am confounded in the 
many tilings I have to say to you, though they all amount but to this, that I am, 
entirelv, as ever, 

" Your," &c. 

Gay took tlie advice '• in the poetical way," and published " An Epistle to a Lady, 
occasioned by the arrival of her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales." But 
though this brought him access to court, and the attendance of the Prince and 



468 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



beautiful and young," of Prior,) pleaded his cause with indig- 
nation, and quitted the court in a huff, carrying off with them 
into their retirement their kind gentle protegd. With these 
kind lordly folks, a real Duke and Duchess, as delightful as 
those who harbored Don Quixote, and loved that dear old 
Sancho, Gay lived, and was lapped in cotton, and had his plate 
of chicken, and his saucer of cream, and frisked, and barked, 
and wheezed, and grew fat, and so ended.* He became very 
melancholy and lazy, sadly plethoric, and only occasionally 
diverting in his latter days. But everybody loved him, and 
the remembrance of his pretty little tricks ; and the raging old 
Dean of St. Patrick's, chafing in his banishment, was afraid to 
open the letter which Pope wrote him, announcing the sad 
news of the death of Gay.f 

Swift's letters to him are beautiful ; and having no purpose 
but kindness in writing to him, no party aim to advocate, or slight 
or anger to wreak, every word the Dean says to his favorite is 
natural, trustworthy, and kindly. His admiration for Gay's 
parts and honesty, and his laughter at his weaknesses, were 
alike just and genuine. He jDaints his character in wonderful 
pleasant traits of jocular satire. " I writ lately to Mr. Pope," 
Swift says, writing to Gay : " I wish you had a little villakin 
in his neighborhood ; but you are yet too volatile, and any lady 
with a coach and six horses would carry you to Japan." " If 
your ramble," says Swift, in another letter, "was on horseback, 
I am glad of it, on account of your health ; but I know your 
arts of patching up a journey between stage-coaches and 

Princess at his farce of the " What d'ye call it ? " it did not bring him a place. On 
the accession of George J I., he was offered the situation of Gentleman Usher to the 
Princess Louisa (her Highness being then two years old) ; but " by this offer," says 
Johnson, " he thought himself insulted." 

* '' Gay was a great eater. — As the French philosopher used to prove his existence 
by Co^lfo, ergo snvi, the greatest proof of Gay's existence is, Edit, ergo est.'^ — CoN- 
GREVE, in a Letter to Pope. Spenee's Anecdotes. 

t Swift endorsed the letter — " On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death ; received Dec. 
15, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune." 

" It was by Swift's interests that Gay was made known to Lord Bolingbroke, and 
obtained his patronage.'' — Scott's Swift, vol. i. p. 156. 

Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's' death, to Swift, thus : — 

"[Z)^^. 5, 1732.] 
« * * * * Qne of the nearest and longest ties I have ever had is broken all on a 
sudden by the unexpected death of poor Mr. Gay. An inflammatory fever hurried 
him out of this life in three days. * * * * He asked of you a few hours before 
when in acute torment by the inflammation in his bowels and breast. * * * * His 
sisters, we suppose, will be his heirs, who are two widows. * * * * Good God ! 
how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage ? In every friend we ,lose 
a part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we have left ! few are worth 
praying for, and one's self the least of all.'' 



PRIOR, GA ]', AND ROPJ-. ^(3^^ 

friends coaches — for you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier 
in Cheapside. I have often had it in my head to put it into 
yours, that you ought to have some great work in scheme, which 
may take up seven years to finish, besides two or three under- 
ones that may add another thousand pounds to your stock, and 
then I shall be in less pain about you. I know you can find 
dinners, but you love twelvepenny coaches too well, without 
considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings 
you but half a crown a day." And then Swift goes off from 
Gay to pay some grand compliments to her Grace the Duchess 
of Queensberry, in whose sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and 
in whose radiance the Dean would have liked to warm himself 
too. 

But we have Gay here before us, in these letters — lazy, 
kindly, uncommonly idle ; rather slovenly, I'm afraid ; forever 
eating and saying good things ; a little round French abbe of a 
man, sleek, soft-handed, and soft-hearted. 

Our object in these lectures is rather to describe the men 
than their works; or to deal with the latter only in as far as 
they seem to illustrate the character of their writers. Mr. Gay's 
" Fables," which were written to benefit that amiable Prince, 
the Duke of Cumberland, the warrior of Dettingen and Cullo- 
den, I have not, I own, been able to peruse since a period of 
very early youth ; and it must be confessed that they did not 
effect much benefit upon the illustrious young Prince, whose 
manners they were intended to mollify, and whose natural fe- 
rocity our gentle-hearted Satirist perhaps proposed to restrahi. 
But the six pastorals called the " Shepherd's Week," and the 
burlesque poem of *' Trivia," any man fond of lazy literature 
will find delightful at the present day, and must read from be- 
ginning to end with pleasure. They are to poetry what charm- 
ing little Dresden china figures are to sculpture : graceful, 
minikin, fantastic ; with a certain beauty always accompanying 
them. The pretty little personages of the pastoral, with gold 
clocks to their stockings, and fresh satin ribbons to their crooks 
and waistcoats and bodices, dance their loves to a minuet-tune 
played on a bird-organ, approach the charmer, or rush from 
the false one daintily on their red-heeled tip-toes, and die of 
despair or rapture, with the most pathetic little*grins and ogles j 
or repose, simpering at each other, under an arbor of pea-green 
crockery; or piping to pretty flocks that have just been washed 
with the best Naples in a stream of Bergamot. Gay's gay plan 
seems to me far pleasanter than that of Phillips — his rival and 
Pope's — a serious and dreary idyllic cockney ; not that Gay's 



47 o ENGLISH HUMORISTS. i 

"Bumkinets and " Hobnelias "' are a whit moro natural than ,■ 
the would-be serious characters of the other posture-master ,•: J 
but the equality of this true humorist was to laugh and make 'j 
laugh, though always with a secret kindness and tenderness, to • 
perform the drollest little antics and capers, but always with a .,' 
certain grace, and to sweet music — as you may have seen a •] 
Savoyard boy abroad, with a hurdy-gurdy and a monkey, turn- v 
ing over head and heels, or clattering and jDirouetting in a pair , \ 
of wooden shoes, yet always with a look of love and appeal in < 
his bright eyes, and a smile that asks and wins affection and I 
protection. Happy they \vho have that sweet gift of nature ! \ 
It was this which made the great folks and court ladies free and • 
friendly with John Gay — which made Pope and Arbuthnot love •■ 
him — which melted the savage heart of Swift when he thought ■[ 
of him — and drove away, for a moment or two, the dark frenzies ^ 
which obscured the lonely tyrant's brain, as he heard Gay's i 
voice with its simple melody and artless ringing laughter. ; 

What used to be said about Rubini, qu'il avait des Iai-ms dans \ 
la voix, may be said of Gay,* and of one other humorist of | 
whom we shall have to speak. In almost every ballad of his, \ 
however slight,t in the Beggar's Opera" and in its wearisome \ 

* " Gay, like Goldsmith, had a musical talent. ' He could play on the flute,' says . 
Malone, * and was, therefore, enabled to adapt so happily some of the airs in the ^ 
*' Beggar's Opera,'' ' ''—Nofcs to Spericc. ' 

" 'Twas when the seas were roaring • 

With hollow blasts of wind, j 
A damsel lay deploring ' ] 

All on a rock reclined. 

Wide o'er the foaming billows ,; 

She cast a wistful look ; -j 

Her head was crown'd with willows ;' 

That trembled o'er the brook. j 

i 

" ' Twelve months are gone and over, 

And nine long tedious days ; 
Why didst tliou, venturous lover — ' 

Why didst thou trust the seas ? ^ 

Cease, cease, thou cruel Ocean, { 

And let my lover rest ; ' 

Ah ! wliat's thy troubled motion 

To that within my breast ' 

- " 'The merchant, robb'd of pleasure, ,- 

Sees tempests in despair ; , 

But what's the loss of treasure J 

To losing of my dear ? 1 

Should you some coast be laid on, ■ 

Where gold and diamonds grow j 

You'd find a richer maiden, 5 

But none that loves you so. j 



FRIOK, GA Y, AXD POPE. 



471 



continuation (where the verses are to the full as pretty as in 
the first piece, however), there is a peculiar, hinted, pathetic 
sweetness and melody.* It charms and melts you. It's inde- 
finable, but it exists ; and is the property of John Gay's and 
Oliver Goldsmith's best verse, as fragrance is of a violet, or 
freshness of a rose. 

Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which is so 
famous that most people here are no doubt familiar with it, but 
so delightful that it is always pleasant to hear : — 

" I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord 
Harcourt's which he lent me. It overlooks a common field, where, under the shade 
of a haycock, sat two lovers — as constant as ever were found in romance — beneath a 
spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound as it will) was John Hewet ; of 
the other Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about five and twenty ; Sarah a 
brown woman of eighteen, John had for several months borne the labor of the day 

" ' How can they say that Nature 

Has nothing made in vain ; 
Why, then, beneath the water 

Should hideous rocks remain ? 
No eyes the rocks discover 

That lurk beneath the deep, 
To wreck the wandering lover. 

And leave the maid to weep ? ' 

" All melancholy lying, 

Thus wailed she for her dear ; 
Repay 'd each blast with sighing, 

Each billow with a tear ; 
When o'er the white wave stooping, 

His floating corpse she spy'd ; 
Then like a lily di-ooping, 

She bow'd her head, and died." 

—A Ballad from the " What iCye call it ? " 

" What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or, rather, Swift's, Arbuthnot's, Pope's 
and Gay's, in the * What d'ye call it?' ' 'Twas when the seas were roaring?' I 
have been well informed that they all contributed." — Cowper to Unwin, 1783, 

* " Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty sort of 
thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was inclined to try at such a thing for 
some time, but afterwards thought it would be better to write a comedy on the same 
plan. This was what gave rise to the ' Beggar's Opera,' He began on it, and when 
he first mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did^not much like the project. As he carried 
it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us ; and we now and then gave a correction, 
or a word or two of advice ; but it was wholly of his own writing. When it was 
done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after 
reading it over, said, ' It would either take greatly, or be damned confoundedly.' We 
were all at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event, till we were very 
much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, 
say, ' It will do— it must do !— I see it in the eyes of them ! ' This was a good while 
before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon ; for the Duke [besides his 
own good taste] has a more particular knack than any one now living in discovering 
the taste of the public. He was quite right m this as usual ; the good nature of the 
audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamor of ap- 
plause." — Pope. Spencers Anecdotes. 



472 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. J 

in the same field with Sarah ; when she milked, it was his morning and evening \ 
charge to bring the cows to lier pail. Their love was the tallc, but not the scandal, ol j 
tlie whole neighborhood, for all they aimed at was the blameless possession of each ,; 
other in marriage. It was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents' 
consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Per- • 
haps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding- J 
clothes ; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field-fiowers to her \ 
complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus em- ■ 
ployed (it was on the last of July), a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, 
that drove the laborers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, fright- ,] 
ened and out of breath, sunk on a haycock ; and John (who never separated from "^ 
her), sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together, to secure her. • Im- 
mediately there was heard so loud a crack, as if heaven had burst asunder. The 
laborers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another : those that were i 
nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the place where they lay : they first \ 
saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful pair — John, with one arm about his Sarah's \ 
neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. They j 
were struck dead, and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was ,j 
no mark or discoloring on their bodies — only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little signed, ?■ 
and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave." "j 

And the proof lliat this description is delightful and beauti- \ 
ful is, that the great Mr. Pope admired it so much that he : 
thought proper to steal it and send it off to a certain lady and \ 
wit, with whom he pretended to be in love in those days — my 
Lord Duke of Kingston's daughter, and married to Mr. Wortley '. 
Montagu, then his Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople. ; 

We are now come to the greatest name on our list — the ■ 
highest among the poets, the highest among the English wits | 
and humorists with whom we have to rank him. If the author • 
of the " Dunciad " be not a humorist, if the poet of the " Rape • 
of the Lock " be not a wit, who deserves to be called so 1 Be- \ 
sides that brilliant genius and immense fame, for both of which'! 
we should respect him, men of letters should admire him as ' 
being the greatest literary artist that England has seen. He ; 
polished, he refined, he thought ; he took thoughts from other \ 
works to adorn and complete his own ; borrowing an idea or a ! 
cadence from another poet as he would a figure or a simile from ; 
a flower, or a river, stream, or any object which struck him in ■ 
his walk, or contemplation of Nature. He began to imitate at '\ 
an early age ; * and taught himself to write by copying printed . 

* " Waller, Spencer, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great favorites, in the order I 
they are named, in his first reading, till he was about twelve years old."— Pope. \ 
Spence's Anecdotes. 

" Mr. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant, and dealt in Hollands, whole- ' 
sale) was no poet, but he used to set him to make English verses when very young. •' 
He was pretty difficult m being pleased ; and used often to send him back to new I 
turn them. ' These are not good rhimes ; ' for that was my husband's word for ^ 
verses."— Pope's Mother. Spence. \ 

" I wrote things, Pm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an Epic Poem when ^ 



PRIOR, CAT, AND POPE. 



473 



books. Then he passed into the hands of the priests, and from 
his first clerical master who came to him when he was eiglit 
years old, he went to a school at Twyford, and another school at 
Hyde Park, at which places he unlearned all that he had got from 
his first instructor. At twelve years old, he went with his father 
into Windsor Forest, and there learned for a few months under 
a fourth priest. " And this was all the teaching I ever had," 
he said, " and God knows it extended a very little way." 

When he had done with his priests he took to reading by 
himself, for which he had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, 
especially for poetry. He learned versification from Dryden, 
he said. In his youthful po.em of " Alcander," he imitated 
every poet, Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Statins, Homer, Virgil. 
In a few years he had dipped into a great number of the 
English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. " This I 
did," he says, " without any design, except to amuse myself ; 
and got the languages by hunting after the stories in the several 
poets I read, rather than read the books to get the languages. 
I followed everywhere as my fancy led me, and was like a boy 
gathering flowers' in the fields and woods, just as they fell in 
his way. These five or six years I looked upon as the hap- 
piest in my life." Is not here a beautiful holiday picture ? 
The forest and the fairy story-book — the boy spelling Ariosto 
or Virgil under the trees, battling with the Cid for the love of 
Chimene, or dreaming of Armida's garden — peace and sunshine 
round about — the kindest love and tenderness waiting for him 
at his quiet home yonder — and Genius throbbing in his young 
heart, and whispering to him, " You shall be great ; you shall 
be famous ; you too shall love and sing ; you will sing her so 
nobly that some kind heart shall forget you are weak and ill- 
formed. Every poet had a love. Fate must give one to you 
too," — and day by day he walks the forest, very likely looking 

about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes and some of the neighboring islands ; 
and the poem opened under water with a description of the Court of Neptune.!' — 
Pope. Ibid. 

" His perpetual application (after he set to study of himself) reduced him in four 
years' time to so bad a state of healtli, that, after trying physicians for a good whi.e 
in vain, he resolved to give way to his distemper ; and sat down calmly in a full ex- 
pectation of death in a short time. Under this thought, he wrote letters to take a 
last farewell of some of his more particular friends, and, among thft rest, one to the 
Abbe Southcote. The Abbe was extremely concerned, both for his very ill state of 
health and the resolution he said he had taken. He thought there might yet be hope, 
and went immediately to Dr. Radcliffe, with whom he was well acquainted, told him 
Mr. Pope's case, got' full directions from him, and carried tliem down to Pope in 
Windsor Forest. The chief thing the Doctor ordered him was to apply less, and to 
ride every day. The following his advice soon restored him to his health."— Pope 
Spcnce. 



^74 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

out for that charmer. " They were the happiest days of his 
life," he says, when he was only dreaming of his fame ; when 
he had gained that mistress she was no consoler. 

That charmer made her appearance, it would seem, about 
the year 1705, when Pope was seventeen. Letters of his are 

extant, addressed to a certain I.ady M , whom the youth 

courted, and to whom he expressed his ardor in languar,e, to 
say no worse of it, that is entirely pert, odious and affected. 
He imitated love-compositions as he had been imitating love- 
poems ji;st before — it was a sham mistress he courted, and a 
sham passion, expressed as became it. These unlucky letters 
found their way into print years afterwards, and were sold to 
the congenial Mr. Curll. If any of my hearers, as I hope 
they may, should take a fancy to look at Pope's correspond- 
ence, let them pass over that first part of it ; over, perhaps, 
almost all Pope's letters to women ; in which there is a tone of 
not pleasant gallantry, and amidst a profusion of compliments 
and politenesses, a something which makes one distrust the 
little pert, prurient bard. There is very little indeed to say 
about his loves, and that little not edifying. He wrote flames 
and raptures and elaborate verse and prose for Lady Mary 
Wortley Montagu ; but that passion probably came to a climax 
in an impertinence and was extinguished by a box on the ear, 
or some such rebuff, and he began on a sudden to hate her with 
a fervor much more genuine than that of his love had been. 
It was a feeble, puny grimace of love, and paltering with pas- 
sion. After Mr. Pope had sent off one of his fine composi- 
tions to Lady Mar}^, he made a second draft from the rough 
copy, and favored some other friend with it. He was so 
charmed with the letter of Gay's that I have just quoted, that 
he had copied that and amended it, and sent it to Lady Mary 
as his own. A gentleman who writes letters a deux fins, and 
having poured out his heart to the beloved, serves up the same 
dish rechauffe to a friend, is not very much in earnest about his 
loves, however much he may be in his piques and vanities when 
his impertinence gets its due. 

But, save that unlucky part of the " Pope Correspondence," 
I do not know, in the range of our literature, volumes more 
delightful. "* You live in them in the finest company in the 

* "Mr. Pope to the Rev. Mr. Broom, Pulham, Norfolk. 
"DEAR Sir,- Aug. 2<)th,.^^o. 

"I INTENDED to write to you on this melancholy subject, the death of Mr. 
Fenton, bafore yours cams, but stayed to liave informed myself and you of tlie circum- 
stances of it. All I hear is, that he felt a gradual decay, though so early in life, and 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 475 

world. A little stately, perhaps ; a little apretc and conscious 
that- they are speaking to whole generations who are listenmg , 
but in the tone of their voices— pitched, as no doubt they are, 

was declining for five or six months. It was not, as I apprehended, the gout in his 
Stomach, but, I beUeve, rather a compHcation first of gross humors as he was nat- 
urally corpulent, not discharging themselves, as he used no sort of exerase Iso 
man better bore tlie approaches of hi., dissolution (as I am told), or with ess ostentn- 
Son Yielded up his being. The great modesty which you know was natural to hnn, 
uuu vicmi-^ I i^ .,'?._ ,.„j f„„ -,11 c^,.f-c: ^f ircin K'^nH naradp. never aoDcared more 




reason. 



as he lived, with that secret, yet sufficient contentmen.. 

" As to anv papers left behind him, I dare say they can be but few ; for this . . 
he never wrote out of vanity, or thought much of the applause of men. I know_ an 
instance whL he did his utmost to conceal his own merit that ^vay ; -d if wejom 
to this his natural love of ease, I fancy we must expect little of this sor at least I 
have heard of none, except some few further remarks on Waller (which his caution, 
inte' ty made him' leave an order to be given to Mr. Tonson), and perhaps, though 
k is maJiy years since I saw it, a translation of the first book of ' Oppian. He had 
be<^un a tragedy of ' Dion,' but made small progress in it. . 

^" As o his other affairs, he died poor but honest, leaving no debts or legacies, ex- 
, cept of "a few pounds to Mr. Trumbull and my lady, in token of respect, gratefulness, 

['"'^""I'shan Witt pleasure take upon me to draw. this, amiable quiet deserv^^^^ 
pretending, Christian, and philosophical character in his epitaph T^/e tuth may 
be spoken n a few words ; as for flourish, and oratory, and poetry, I leave them o 
younger and more lively writers, such as love writing for writing's sake, and would 
Jathef show their own fine parts than report the valuable ones of any other man. So 

.'^'''\'condole with'youfrom my heart on the loss of so worthy a man, and a friend 

' "' Adieli ; let us love his memory and profit by his example. Am very sincerely, 
^^^^ gj^ ' Your affectionate and real servant. 

"To THE Earl of Burlington. August, 1714. 

"^^''"^I?''yourmare could speak she would give you an account of what extraor- 
dinary company she had on the road, which, since she cannot do 1 will. 

"It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of Mr-/?f^""':''j°' 
mounted on a stone-horse, overtook me in Windsor Forest. «« ^^^f^J^f^^^eard I de- 
si-med for Oxford, the seat of the Muses, and would, as my bookseller, by all means 

^^^TaTed hin^r. he got his horse ? He answered he got it of his publisher^ 
' for that rogue, my printer,' said he, ' disappomted me. I hoped o pu him m good 
liumor bv a treat at the tavern of a brown fricassee of ^^f^its which cost ten sh^^^^^^^ 
with two quarts of wine, besides my conversation. I thought myself cock-sure ot his 
j; e wh?ch he readily promised nre, but said that Mr. Tonson had Jus such a^o hei 
desi,Aof going to Cambridge, expecting there the ^"Py o^, J Xn "him^Vin' to 
froin Dr. --; and if Mr. Tonson went, he was P^t'^S^S^f .K ^.A^r'se of mv 
have t'le p'-i-fn- of the said copy. So, in short, I borrowed this stone-horse ot m) 
puUi^;l^r;;h£;i.c had of Mr. SIdmixJn for a d.bt. He lent me, too, t^P-tty boy 
you see after me. He was a smutty dog yesterday, and cost me ^ "i n^d verv foi- 
to wash the ink off his face ; but the devil is a fair-cond. lonal devil, ^and veiy toi 
ward in h.is catechism. If you have any more bags he shall carry them 
• - I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to be neg ected, so gave the bo> a small to 
containing three shirts and an Ekevir Virgil, and, mounting in an "^^t^^^' iXeVatd 
..n the read, with my man before, my courteous stationer beside, and the atoresaia 

^""'''^S Untot began in this manner : • Now, damn them ! What if they should put 



I 



4^6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

beyond the mere conversation key — in the expression of theii 
thoughts, their various views and natures, there is something 
generous, and cheering, and ennobling. You are in the society 

it into the newspaper how you and 1 went together to Oxford? What would I care? 
If J should go down into Sussex they would say I was gone to the Speaker", but what 
of 'hit ? Jf my son wece but big enough to go on with the business, by G — d, I would 
keep r;j good company as old Jacob.' 

" Hereupon, I inquired of his son. 'The lad,' says he, ' has fine parts, but is 
scnievvhat sickly, much as you are. I spare for nothing in his education at West < 
minster. Pray', don't you think Westminster to be the best school in England? 
Most of the late Ministry came out of it; so did many of this Mi«istry. I hope the; 
boy will make his fortune.' 

'" Don't you design to let him pass a year at Oxford?' ' To what purpose? 
said he. ' The Universities do but make pedants, and I intend to breed him a man, 
of business.' 

" As Mr. Lintot was talking I observed he sat uneasy on his saddle, for whirh I ex-h 
pressed some solicitude. ' Nothing,' says he. * I can bear it well enough ; but, since r 
we have the day before us, methinks it would be very pleasant for you to rest awhilelj 
under the woods.' When we were alighted, ' See, here, what a mighty pretty f loraceh 
I have in my pocket ? What, if you anuised yourself in turning an ode till we mount j 
again ? Lord ! if you pleased, what a clever miscellany might you make at leisure 
hours ? ' ' Perhaps I may,' said 1, ' if wc ride on : the motion is an aid to my fancy ; i 
a round trot very much awakens my spirits ; then jog on apace, and Pll think as hard'i 
as I can.' 

" Silence ensued for a full hour ; after which Mr. Linton lugged the reins, stopped 
short, and broke out, ' Well, sir, how far have you gone ? ' 1 answered, seven miles. 
' Z — ds, sir,' said Lintot, '' 1 thought you had done seven stanzas. Oldsworth, in a 
ramble round Wimbledon Hill, would translate a whole ode in half this time. Pll say 
that for Oldsworth [though I lost by his Timothy's], he translates an ode of Horace 
the quickest of any man in England. 1 remember Dr. King would write verses in a 
tavern, three hcurs aft:r he could not speak : and there is Sir Richard, in that rum- 
bling old chariot of his, between Fleet Ditch and St. Giles's Pound, shall make you 
half a Job.' 

" • Pray, Mr. Lintot,' said I, ' now you talk of translators, what is your method of 
managing them ? ' ' Sir,' replied he, ' these are the saddest pack of rogues in the 
world : in ahungryfit, they'll swear they understand all the languages in the universe. 
I have known one of them take down a Cireek book upon my counter and cry, " Ah, 
this is Hebrew, and must read it from the latter end." By G — d, I can never l)c sure 
in these fellows, for I neither understand Greek, Latin, French, nor Italian myself. 
But this is my way ; I agree with them for ten shillings per sheet, with a proviso that 
I will have their doings corrected with whom I please ; so by one or the other 
tlicy are led at last to the true sense of an author ; my judginent giving the negative 
to all my translators.' ' Then how are you sure these correctors may not impose upon 
you ? ' ' Why, I get any civil gentleman (especially any Scotchman) that comes into 
my shop, to read the original to me in Englisli ; by this I know whether my first trans- 
lator be deficient, and whether my corrector merits his money or not. 

'•' Pll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained with S for a 

new version of " Lucretius,'' to publish against Tonson's, agreeing to pay the author 
so many shillings at his producing so many lines. He made a great progress in a 
\-:ry short time, and I gave it to the corrector to compare with the Latin ; but he 
Vi cnt directly to Creech's translation, and found it the same, word for word, all but the 
first pa'^c. Xow, what d'ye think I did? I arrested the translator for a cheat ; nay, 
and I stopped the corrector's pay, too, upon the proof that he had made use of Creech :* 
instead of the original.' 

"' Pray tell me next how you deal with the critics?' 'Sir,' said he, 'nothing v 
more easy. I can silence the most formidable of them ; the rich ones for a sheet ■^' 
apiece of the blotted manuscript, v.'hich cost me nothin,';; they'll go about with it to ''; 
their acquaintance, and pretend they had it from the author, who submitted it to their :J 
correction : this has given some of Ihem such an ^ir, that in time they come to be con* 'ij 

J 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 477 

of men who have filled the greatest parts in the world's story 
"—you are with St. John the statesman ; Peterborough the con- 
queror; Swift, the greatest wit of all times; Gay, the kindliest 
laugher — it is a privilege to sit in that company. Delightful 
and generous banquet ! with a little faith and a little fancy any 

' suited v/ith and dedicated to as the tip-top critics of the town. —As for the poor critics, 
.I'll give you one instance of my management, by which you may guess the rest : A 
lean man, that looked like a Tery good scholar, came to me t'other day ; he turned over 
■ytHir Homer, shook his head, shrugged up his shoulders, and pish'd at every line of it. 
"" One would wonder,' ' says he, '• at the strange presumption of some men ; Homer is 

no such easy task as every stripling, every versifier " he was going on when my 

wife called to dinner. '• Sir,'' said I, " will you please to eat a piece of beef with me ? '' 
" Mr. Lintot," said he, "I am very sorry you should be at the expense of this great 
book: I am really concerned on your account.'' " Sir, I am much obliged to you; if 

you can dine upon a piece of beef, together with a piece of pudding ? '' — '"Mr. 

Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise with men of 

learning " — " Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you please to go in." My 

critic complies ; he comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath 
that the book is commendable, and the pudding excellent. 

" ' Now, sir,' continued Mr. Lintot, ' in return for the frankness I have shown, 
pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at court that my Lord Lansdowne will 
be brought to the bar or not ? ' I told him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my 
lord being one I had particular obligations to. — ' That may be,' replied Mr. Lintot ; 
'but by G if he is not, I shall lose the printing of a very good trial.' 

" These, my lord, are a few traits with which you discern the genius of Mr. Lintot, 
which I have chosen for the subject of a letter. I dropped him as soon as I got to 
Oxford, and paid a visit to my Lord Carleton, at Middleton. * * * 

" I am,"' &c. 

"Dr. Swift to Mr. Pofe. 

" Sept. 29, 1725. 

'• I am now returning to the noble scene of Dublin — 'mio'^-\t grand mondc — for 
fear of burying my parts ; to signalize myself among curates and vicars, and correct 
nil corruptions crept in relating "to the weight of bread and butter through those do- 
minions where I govern. I have employed my time (besides ditching) in finishing, 
correcting, amending, and transcribing my ' Travels ' [Gulliver's], in four parts com- 
plete, newly augmented, and intended for the press when the world shall deserve 
them, or rather, when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears. 1 
like the scheme of our meeting after distresses and dispersions; but the chief end I 
propose to myself in all my lalxirs is to vex the world rather than divert it ; and if I 
could compass that design without hurting my own person or fortune, I would be the 
most indefatigable writer you have ever seen, without reading. I am exceedingly 
pleased that you have done with translations ; Lord Treasurer Oxford often lamented 
that a rascally world should lay you under a necessity of misemploying your genius for 
so long a time ; but since you will now be so much better employed, when you think 
of the world, give it one lash the more at my rec^uest. I have ever hated all nations, 
professions, and communities ; and all my love is towards individuals — for instance, I 
hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Councillor Such-a-one and Judge Such-a-<jne ; it is 
so with physicians (I will not speak of my own trade), soldiers, English, Scotch, 
French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man— 
although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. 

"* * * I have got materials towards a treatise proving the falsity of that definition 
rt?^';;;*^/ riT/zcwa/^, and to show it should be only r«^/(9«7i- cfl/rzA-. * * * * The 
matter is so clear that it will admit of no dispute— nay, I will hold a hundred pounds 
that you and I agree in the point. * * * 

" Mr. Lewis sent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very sensible 
affliction to me, who, by living so long out of the world, have lost that_ hardness of heart 
contracted by years and general conversation. lam daily losing friends, and neithc 



,>.g ENGLfSH HUMORISTS. 

one of US here may enjoy it, and conjure up those great ligurea;.y 
out of the past, and listen to their wit and wisdom. Mind thata 
there is always a certain cachet zhoMl great men — they may bei 
as mean on many points as you or I, but they carry their4| 
great air — they speak of common life more largely and gen-^l 
erously than common men do^they regard the world with a 'I 
manlier countenance, and see its real features more fairly than ] 
the timid shufflers who only dare to look up at life through '1 
blinkers, or to have an opinion when there is .a crowd to back 
it. He who reads these noble records of a past age, salutes 
and reverences the great spirits who adorn it. You may go 1 
home now and talk with St. John ; you may take a volume 
from your library and listen to Swift and Pope. I 

Might I give counsel to any young hearer, 1 would say 
to him. Try to frequent thq company of your betters. In books I 
and life that is the most wholesome society ; learn to admire 
rightly ; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great j 
men admired ; they admired great things : narrow spirits ad- 
mire basely, and worship meanly. I know nothing in any story \ 

V 

seeking nor getting others. Oh ! if the world hcid but a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, 1 \ 
would burn my ' Travels ! ' " \ 

"Mr. Popk to Dr. Swifi. \ 

" October 15, 1725. ,; 

" I am wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind answer. It makes ' 

me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and more to your old \ 

friends. * * * Here is one [Lord Bolingbroke] who was once a powerful planet, but ■] 

has now (after long experience of all that comes of shining) learned to be content j 

with returning to his first point without the thought or ambition of shining at all. , 

Here is another [Edward, Earl of Oxford], who thinks one of the greatest glories of \ 

his father was to have distinguished and loved you, and who loves you hereditarily, j 

Here is Aibuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleased with the I 

hope of seeing you again than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long ; 

despised but what is made up of a few men like yourself. * * * j 

'" Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs — and generally by j 

Tories too, Because he had humour, he was supposed to have dealt witli Dr. Swift, ] 

in like manner as when any one had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt ■ 

wi-th the devil. * * * " , 

" Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall ; I wish he had received no 1 

more by his other fall. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most improved mind since you .! 

saw him, that ever was improved without sliifting into a new body, or being paullo ', 

■>ni7iHs ab angells. I have often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us m:;ct again, ) 

alter so many varieties and changes, after so much of the old world and of the old \ 

man in each of us has been altered, that scarce a single thought of the one, any more , 

than a single atom of the other, remains just the same; I "have fancied, I say, that \ 

we should meet like the righteous in the millenium, quite in peace, divested of all our ' 

former passion, smiling at our past follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of the '; 

just in tranquillity. ; 

****** • 

" I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to fill, but he is so \ 

t®uched with the period in yours to me, concerning him, that he intends to answer it by ; 

a whole letter. * h; *- '' \ 



PRIOR, GAY. AND POPE. ^^^ 

lore gallant and cheering than the love and friendship which 
lis company of famous men bore towards one another. There 
ever has been a society of men more friendly, as there never 
•as one more illustrious. Who dares quarrel with Mr. Pope, 
reat and famous himself, for liking the society of men great 
nd famous t and for liking them for the qualities which made 
lem so t A mere pretty fellow from White's could not have 
-ritten the " Patriot King," and would very likely have de- 
pised little Mr. Pope, the decrepit Papist, whom the great St. 
lohn held to be one of the best and greatest of men : a mere 
obleman of the court could no more have won Barcelona, than 
e could have written Peterborough's letters to Pope,* wdiich 
re as witty as Congreve : a mere Irish Dean could not have 
'ritten "Gulliver;" and all these men loved Pope, and Pope 
)ved all these men. To name his friends is to name the best 
len of his time. Addison had a senate ; Pope reverenced his 
quals. He spoke of Swift with respect and admiration always. 
lis admiration for Bolingbroke was so great, that when some 
ne said of his friend, " There is something in that great man 
hich looks as if he was placed here by mistake," " Yes," 
ope answered, " and when the comet appeared to us a month 
r two ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might pos- 
bly be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to one's 

* " Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says :— " He was one of those men of 
reless wit and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand bon-mots and idle verses, 
liich we painful compilers gather and hoard, till the authors stare to find themselves 
ithors. Such was this lord, of an advantageous figure and enterprising spirit ; as 
dlantas Amadis and as brave ; but a little liiore expeditious in his journeys ; for he is 
id to have seen more kings and more postilions than any man in Europe. * * * 
e was a man, as his friend said, who would neither live nor die like any other 
ortal. 

" F"rom the Earl of Peterborough to Pope. 

"You must receive my letters with a just impartiality, and give grains of allow- 
ice for a gloomy or rainy day ; I sink grievously with the weather-glass, and am quite 
)iritless wlien oppressed witli the thoughts of a birthday or a return. 

" Dutiful affection was bringing me to town ; but undutiful laziness, and being 
uch out of order, keep me in the country : however, if alive, I must make my appear- 
ice at the birthday. * * * ' ' 

" You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one woman at a tin e 
ther to praise or love. If I dispute with you upon this' point, I doubt every jury will 
vc a verdict against me. So, sir, with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow you plural - 
es, the favorite privilege of our church. 

" 1 find you don't mend upon correctioh ; again I tell you you must not think of 
omen in a reasonable way ; you know we always make goddesses of these we adore 
Don eartli ; and do not all the good men tell us we must lay aside reason in what 
lates to the Deity ? 

" * * * I should have been r^kKl of anything of Swift's. Pray, when you 
rite to him next, tell him I expect h';P.i with impatience, in a place as odd and as 
uch out of the way as himself. Yours.'' 

Peterborough married Miss Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer. 



480 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

door for visitors." So these great spirits spoke of one another 
Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that even 
dawdled round a club table, so faithful and so friendly. 

We have said before that the chief wits of this time, witl" j 
the exception of Congreve, were what we should now call men'5 1 
men. They spent many hours of the four-and-twenty, a fourtl 
part of each day nearly, in clubs and coffee-houses, where the) 
dined, drank, and smoked. Wit and news went by word oi 
mouth; a journal of 17 10 contained the very smallest portior 
of one or the other The chiefs spoke, the faithful habitues sat 
round ; strangers came to wonder and listen. Old Dryden had 
his head-quarters at " Will's," in Russell Street, at the cornet 
of Bow Street : at which place Pope saw him when he was 
twelve years old. The company used to assemble on the first 
floor — what was called the dining-room floor in those days-^ 
and sat at various tables smoking their pipes. It is recorded] 
that the beaux of the day thought it a great honor to be allowed 
to take a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box. When Addison 
began to reign, he with a certain crafty propriety — a policy let 
us call it — which belonged to his nature, set up his court, and' 
appointed the officers of his royal house. His palace waa 
''Button's," opposite "Will's."* A quiet opposition, a silenl 
assertion of empire, distinguished this great man. Addison' 
ministers were Budgell, Tickell, Phillips, Carey ; his master oj 
the horse, honest Dick Steele, who was what Duroc was t 
Napoleon, or Hardy to Nelson ; the man who performed hi 
master's bidding, and would have cheerfully died in his quarrel 
Addison lived with these people for seven or eight hours eve 
day. The male society passed over their punch-bowls an 
tobacco-pipes about as much time as ladies of that age spe 
over Spadille and Manille. 

For a brief space, upon coming up to town, Pope forme 
part of King Joseph's court, and was his rather too eager an 
obsequious humble servant.f Dick Steele, the editor of th 

* " Button liad been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family, who, under th 
patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house on the south side of Russell Street, aix)U 
two doors from Covent Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to a^ 
semble. It is said that when Addison had suffered any vexation from the Countesj 
he withdrew the company from Button's house. 

" From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late ani 
drank too much wine.'' — Dr. Johnson. 

Will's coffee-house was on the west side of Bow^ Street, and " corner of Russei 
Street." See " Handbook of London.'' 

t "My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712 : I liked him then a 
well as I liked any man, and was very fond of his conversation. It was very soon afte 
that Mr. Addison advised me ' not to be content with the applause of half the nation; 
He used to talk much and «ften to me, of moderation in parties ; and used to blans 



PRIOR, GAY, ^iXD POPE. 



481 



Tatlery Mr. Addison's man, and his own man too, — a person of 
10 little figure in the world of letters, patronized the young 
ooet, and set him a task or two. Young Mr. Pope did the 
;asks very quickly and smartly (he had been at the feet, quite 
IS a boy, of Wycherley's * decrepit reputation, and propped 
jp for a year that doting old wit) : he was anxious to be well 
ivith the men of letters, to get a footing and a recognition. He 
:hought it an honor to be admitted into their company ; to have 
he confidence of Mr Addison's friend, Captain Steele. His 
:minent parts obtained for him the honor of heralding Ad- 
dison's triumph of '* Cato " with his admirable prologue, and 
[leading the victorious procession as it were. Not content with 
diis act of homage and admiration, he wanted to distinguish 
limself by assaulting Addison's enemies, and attacked John 
Dennis w-ith a prose lampoon, which highly offended his lofty 

lis dear friend Steele for being to much of a party man. He encouraged me in my 
design of translating the ' Iliad,' whidh was begun that year, and finished in 1718."—. 
Pope. Spenccs Anecdotes. 

" Addison had Budgell, and I think Phillips, in the house with him — Gay they 
would call one of my elevls. — They were angry with me for keeping so much with Dr. 
Swift and some of the late Ministry." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

* '•' To Mr. Blount. 

'■'■Jan. 21, 1715-16. 
^* I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present as some circum- 
stances of the last act of that eminent comic poet and our friend, Wycherley. He had 
often told me, and I doubt not he did all his acquaintance, that he would marry as 
soon as his life was despaired of. Accordingly, a few days before his death, he under- 
iwent the ceremony, and joined together these two sacraments which wise men say we 
should be the last to receive ; for, if you observe, matrimony is placed after extreme 
unction in our catechism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be 
taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the consciousness of having, by this 
one act, obliged a woman who (he was told) had merit, and shown an heroic resent- 
ment of the ill-usage of his next heir. Some hundred pounds which he had with the 
lady discharged his debts ; a jointure of 500/. a year made her a recompense ; and the 
nephew was left to comfort himself as well as he could with the miserable remains of 
mortgaged estate. I saw our friend twice after this was done — less peevish in his 
siclcness than he used to be in his health ; neither much afraid of dying, nor (which in 
him had been more likely) much ashamed of marrying. The evening before he ex- 
pired, he called his young wife to his bedside, and earnestly entreated her not to deny 
him one request— the last he should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, 
he told her: " My dear, it is only this— that you v.ill never marry an old man again. 
\ cannot help remarking that sickness, whicli often destroys both wit and wisdom, 
vet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humor. Mr. Wycherley 
showed his even in his last compliment ; though I think his request a little hard, for 
why should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms .? 

'' So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased myself to know 
such trifles when they coacern or characterize any eminent person. The wisest and 
wittiest of men are seldom wiser or wittier than others in these sober moments ; at 
least, our friend ended much in the same character 1-e hid lived in ; and Horace's rul* 
for play may as well be applied to him as a playwright : — 

" ' Servetur ad imum 
Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constat.' 
^ ^ *' I am,'- &c 

31 



482 BNGLISn HUMORISTS. 

patron Mr Steele was instructed to write to Mr. Dennis, and' 
inforn, Iu„i tliat Mr Pope'. ,,ampl,iet against lum was wr tten' 
quite without Mr. Addison's approval.'* Indeed, " The Nai ' 
rative of Dr. Robert Norris on thei'hrenzv of ]. D " is a vul-ar 
and mean satire, and such a blow as the' magnificent Addison 
cou d never desire to see any partisan of his strike in any 
TZ\T ,f°P%^^-^^ '^lo-^'^ly allied with Swift when he 

Swi f- P^fP'^l^t It 's ^'O rfirty that it has been printed in 

Ss works too. It bears the foul marks of the master hand. 
Swift admired and enjoyed with all his heart the prodigious, 
genius of the young Papist lad out of Windsor Fores , who liacl' 
never seen a university in his life, and came and conquered the 
Dons and the doctors with his wit. He applauded and loved h m 
too, and protected hini, and taught him mischief. I wish Ad- 
dison could have loved him better. The best satire that ever has 
been penned would never ha^•e been written then ; and one of 
the best characters the world ever k-hew would have been vrith- 

an I \^Z- "' ''' 'f° "f ' ^° f^«' ^^"^'^ <=°"'^' "O' bear one, 
and I ope was more than that. When Pope, trying for himself 

w"s \T2r "1 """°".^' ^'°""» ^""s=' f°""dthat his, o": 

and feft A ir ' "° P'"'°" °f "'"' ^Se could follow, he rose 

siniini ht ' ~'"P^"^'' '""""S "" ''i^ °"'" eminence, and 

Singing ills own song. ' 

Mr"Adrlfso°' ''°''n''i "'^^ P°P« ^h°"ld remain a retainer of 
Mr Addison ; nor likely that after escaping from his vassalage 
and assuming an ndependent crown, the sm-ereign whose alfe 
glance he quitted should view him amicably.f They did not 
do wrong to mis hke eaci, other. They but followed the impulse 
be amr''i;<T; / '' consequence of position. When Bernado ^ 

atu am nLoI '" . ™"'' "^' ^""""^ ^°y^' °f Sweden was 
naturally Napoleon's enemy. - There are many passions and 

a Kl M? Pone rT ^f°'■^''''='^ 'i"'e dii?erences between him 
and Mr. Pope took place, "which naturally dispose us to de- 

ness to himself, nformed DennV, 1 lU ? . ^ "'' *= consequences of liis officious. 
SON : a/j „/am'sI!I ^ °''" "'" '"= "■="' ^""y '"' «"= insult."-JoHN- 

.liot.ld rather tell Inn/h m e f Airlv of his f.^ '^^?^ '"^ f.^h a dirty way ; that I i 
that it should be someth ^a in fil f 11 ^ '' '''"'^ allow his good qualities; and 



FRIOK, GA \\ AND POPE. 483 

ess and vilify the merit of one rising in tl.j esteem of man- 
rrd. All those who made their entrance into the world with 
e same advantages, and were once looked on as his equals, 
e apt to think the fame of his merits a reflection on their own 
serts. Those who v/ere onee his equals envy and defame 
m, because they now see him the superior ; and those who 
jre once his superiors, because they look upon him as their 
lual." Did Mr. Addison, justly perhaps thinking that, as 
lung Mr. Pope had not had the benefit of a university educa- 
m,1ie couldn't know Greek, therefore he couldn't translate 
omer, encourage his young friend Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, 
translate that poet, and aid him with his own known scholar 
ip and skill ? " * It was natural that Mr. Addison should 
mbt of the learning of an amateur Grecian, should have a high 
)inion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, and should help that in- 
;nious young man. It was natural, on the other hand, that 
r. Pope and Mr. Pope's friends should believe that^ this 
•unter-translation, suddenly advertised and so long written, 
ough Tickell's college friends had never heard of it— though, 
len Pope first wrote to Addison regarding his scheme, Mr. 
ddison knew nothing of the similar project of Tickell, of 
ueen's— it was natural that Mr. Pope and his friends, hav- 
g interests, passions and prejudices of their own, should 
dieve that Tickell's translation was but an act of opposition 
jainst Pope, and that they should call Mr. Tickell's emula- 
m Mr. Addison's envy — if envy it were. 

" And were th re one whose fires 
True ccnius kindles and fair fame inspires, 
Blest witli each talent and each heart to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease ; 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear like tiie Turk no brother near the throne ; 
View him Vv-ith scornful yet with jealous eyes. 
And hate, for arts that caused himselfto rise ; 
Damn with taint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And witiiout sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; 
Alike reserved to blame as to commend, 
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; 
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, 
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; 
Like Cato give^his little senate laws, 
And sit attentive to his own applause ; 



« " That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improba- 
-. : that Addison should have been guilty of a villany seems to us high y improbable ; 
t that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villany, seems, to 
, improbable in a tenfold degree."— Macaulay, 



4^4 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. \ 

While wits and templars every sentence raise, | 

And wonder with a foolish face of praise ; | 

Who but must laugh if such a man there be, ^ 

Who would not weep if Atticus were he ? " \ 



"I sent the verses to Mr/ Addison," said Pope, "and i 
used me very civilly ever after." No wonder he did. It ^^ ; 
shame very likely more than fear that silenced him. Johns i 
recounts an interview between Pope and Addison after th' 
quarrel, in which Pope was angry, and Addison tried to be cc 
temptuous and calm. Such a weapon as Pope's must ha 
pierced any scorn. It flashes forever, and quivers in A 
dison's memory. His great figure looks out on us from t 
past — stainless but for that — pale, and calm, and beaui 
ful ; it bleeds from that black wound. He should be drau 
like St. Sebastian, with that arrow in his side. As he se 
to Gay and asked his p^don, hs he bade his stepson cor 
and see his death, be sure he had forgiven Pope, when 
made ready to show how a Christian gould die. 

Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court for a she 
time, and describes himself in his letters as sitting with th 
coterie until two o'clock in the morning over punch and bi 
gundy amidst the fumes of tobacco. To use an expressic 
of the present day, the " pace " of those viveurs of the form 
age was awful. Peterborough lived into the very jaws of deatij 
Godolphin labored all day and gambled at night ; Bolir^ 
broke,* writing to Swift, from Dawle}-, in his retirement, dati« 
his letter at six o'clock in the morning, and rising, as \ 
says, refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the time ' 
his London life : when about that hour he used to be goi 
to bed, surfeited with pleasure and jaded with business ; if 
head often full of schemes, and his heart as often full 
anxiety. It was too hard, too coarse a life for the sensitiv 

* " Lord Bolingbroke to the Three Yahoos of Twickenham. 

*' July 23, 1 726 
" Jonathan, Alexander, John, most excellent Triumvirs of l^k 

NASSUS, — i 

" TIiou.£;h you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what I am doing, j 
I resolve to believe the contrary. I persuade myself that you have sent at least i 
teen times within this fortnight to Dawley tarni, and that you are extremely mortift 
At my long silence. To relieve you, tjierefore, from this great anxiety of mind, 1 ci 
do no less than write a few lines to you , and I please myself beforehand with t 
vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That I may add to this pie 
ure, and give further proofs of my beneficent temper, I will likewise infoim you, tJ 
1 shall bo in your neighborhood again, by the end of next week . by which time 
hope that Jonathan's imagination of business will be succeeded by some imaginati 
more becoming a professor of that divine science, la bagatelle. Adieu. JonatJfe! 
Alexander, John, mirth be with you ! " =« 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. 485 

:kly Pope. He was the only wit of the day, a friend writes 
^ me, who wasn't fat.* Swift was fat ; Addison was fat .; 
ee'e'was fat; Gay and Tiiomson were preposterously fat— 
I that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee- 
)use boozing, shortened the lives and enlarged the waist- 
)ats of the men of that age. Pope withdrew in a great 
easure from this boisterous London company, and being put 
to an independence, by the gallant exertions of Swift t and 
s private friends, and' by the enthusiastic national admira- 
Dii which justly rev/arded his great achievement of the 
illiad," purchased that famous villa of Twickenham which 
s song and life celebrated ; duteously bringing his old parent 
live and die there, entertaining his friends there, and making 
jcasional visits to London in his little chariot, in which Atter- 
ury compared him to " Homer in a nutshell." 

" Mr. Dryden was not a genteel man," Pope quaintly said 
, Spence, speaking of the manner and habits of the famous old 
atriarch'of "Will's." With regard to Pope's own manners, 
e have the best contemporary authority that they were sm- 
ularly refined and polished. With his extraordinary sensibility, 
ith his known tastes, with his delicate frame, with his power 
nd dread of ridicule. Pope could have been no other than what 
■e call a hi^hlv-bred person. t His closest friends, with the 
xception of Swi'ft, were among the delights and ornaments of 
le polished societv of their age. Garth, § the accomplished 
nd benevolent, whom Steele has described so charmingly, of 
'hom Codrington said that his character was " all beauty,'' 
nd whom Pope himself called the best of Christians without 
nowing it ; Arbuthnot, |i one of the wisest, wittiest, most ac- 

* Prior must bo excepted from this observation. " He was lank and lean." 
t Swift exerted himself very much in promoting the '^ Iliad ' subscription ;_ and 
so introduced Pope to Harlev and Bolingbrokc.-Pope realized by the Iliad up- 
ards of ;,ooo/., which lie laid out partly in annuities, and partly m the purchase o 
is famou^ villa. Johnson remarks that - it would be hard to find a man so v;cll 
ititled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much m talking of his mone} . 

t •' His (Pope's) voice in common conversation was so naturally musical, tnat 1 
^member honest Tom Southerne used always to call him ' the little nightingale. - 

i'TGarth, whom Dryden calls " generous as his Muse,'' was a Yorkshireman He 
raduated at Cambridge, and was made M.D. in 1691. He soon thstinguishe h n- 
;lf in his profession%y his poem of the - Dispensary,'' and m society and 1 - 
ounced Dryden-s funeral oration. He was a strict Whig, a notable member of the 
, K.t-Cat," and a friendly, convivial, able man. He was knighted by Geoige 1., ^^.th 
lie Duke of Marlborough's sword. He died in 1718. j .,„^ K^lnnc^pd 

II " Arbuthnot was the son of an episcopal clergyman in Scot and and be oiv^ed 
. an ancient and distinguished Scotch family He was educated at Abeideen and 
pming up to London-according to a Scotch pi;actice often enough aUuded to-to 
lake hi/fortune-llrst made himself known by 'An Exammat on of Di . \\ood 
rard's Account of the Deluge.' He became physician successively to Prince beorg# 



486 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

coraplished, gentlest of mankind; Bolingbroke, the Alcibiadel 
of his age ; the generous Oxford , the magnificent, the witty! 
the famous, and chivah-ous Peterborough : these were the fas 
and faithful friends of Pope, the most brilliant company o 
friends, let us repeat, that the world has ever seen. The fa' 

of Denmark and to Queen Anne. He is usually allowed to have been the mos ! 
learned, as well as one of the most witty and humorous members of the Scribleru ! 
LUm. The opmion cntcrta.ned of him by the humorists of the day is abundantbi 
evidenced m thnr correspondence. When he found himself in his'last illness ImI 
v.Tote thus, from his retreat at Hampstead, to Swift ;~ ' ' 

M\ Dear and Worthy Friend. — ' ^ '^'^ 

"' You have no reason to put me among the rest of your forgetful friends, foi ! 
1 wrote two long letters to you, to which I never received one word of answer The 
hrst was about your health : the last I sent a great while ago, by one De la Mar 1 1 
can assure you with great truth that none of your friends or acquaintance has a morei 
warm heart towards you than myself. I am going out of this troublesome world, and 
you. among the rest of my friends, shall have my last pravers and good wishes 

' ' * * * I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsv and an asthma, that I 
could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move. I most earnestly desired and begged of 
C7od that he would take me. Contrary to my expectation, upon venturing 'to ride 
(which I liad forborne for some years), I recovered my strength to a pretty considera- 
ble degree, slept and had my stomach again. * * * What I did, 1 can assure vou 
was not tor life, but ease ; tor I am at present in the case of a man that was almost in 
harbor, and then blown back to sea— who has a reasonable hope of goin- to a <Tood 
place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have anv par- 
icular disgust at the world; for I have as great comfort in my own family and from 
the kindness of my friends as any man; but the world, in the main, displeases me, 
and 1 tiave too true a presentiment of calamities that are to befall my country. How- 
ever, It 1 should have the happiness to see you before 1 die, you will find that 1 enioy 
the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine whv you are 
Irightened from a journey to England : the reasons you assign are not sufficient-the 
journey I am sure would do you good. In general, I recommend riding, of which I 
liave ^always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my own experience 

My family give you their love and service. The great loss I sustained in one 
of them gave me my first shock, and the trouble I have with the rest to bring them to 
tZt\ "f ' •m'"'' S' ■°'' °^' ^ ^^*^'"'' ^"'^° ^«^'^^ ^'^e»^' '-^"d whom they love, is 
.ifL^ 1 ''"''^^' •''^^'?- °" ^°,."'^- ^ ^'" ^^''-^^^l' "^y dear friend, wc shall ne^er 
see one another more m this world. I shall, to the last moment, preserve n)y love 

Znnr fn^.^ri'-^^'^^^^'Z^^^^^ "^^^'" ^'^''^ ^he paths of virtue and 

ho 01 , lor all that is in this world is not worth the least deviation from the way. It 

SLriffflf^T'''"''^''r^?-^'T ^'°"' >'^^^ sometimes; for none are with more 
sincent> than I am my dear friend, your most faithful friend and humble servant." ' 
n,-.f.eJ^n , "^ ' J "'if ^o" .s^ys. " was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his 
nfM, ' '^'"^.d/" ^'\^ sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to ani- 
HlH.n' /' '/ '^"°^^:^^t' by a bright and active imagination ; a scholar with great 
ardor of ret i^lL'z^aT."'" ''' '^'"^ ""' life, retained and discovered a noble 



zeal. 

^y'^.^.'lf^nilwT}f\T'^^^^^ ^ department of which ho 1 

was, aiticulaily qualified to judge: '-Let me add, that, in the list of i3hilosophical 

\lZv"Z\^"^^T,r "«^t« be overlooked. Their 1 

is S. f o tl ° f ^c^^olastic logic and metaphysics is universally known ; but few ' 
nnsfvnLri? "'''•'"\'^ Sagacity displayed in their allusions to some of the 

most vulnerable mssages m Locke's 'Essay.' In this part of the work it is com- 

"r]L";"ttr.ttw'''%'"°' '"^ *'^ P""^'P^^ shale.''--5i"/'r/tw/^" 
ser^afion to Encyclo;pced7a Britannica, note to p. 242, and also note B. B. B., p. 



PRIOR, GA i; .-/.\7.) POPE. 



A.^1 



^rite recreation of his leisure Iiours was tlie society of painters, 
hose ar4; he practised. In his correspondence are letters 
^tween him and Jervas, whose pupil he loved to be— 
(ichardson, a celebrated artist of his time, and who painted 
r him a portrait of his old mother, and for whose picture he 
iked "nd thanked Richardson in one of the most delightful 
tters that ever was penned,* — and the wonderful Kneller, 
ho bragged more, spelt worse, and painted better than any 
:her artist of his day.f 

It is affecting to note, through Pope's Correspondence, 
le marked way in which his friends, the greatest, the most 
mous, and wittiest men of the time — generals and statesmen, 
lilosophers and divines — all have a kind word and a kind 
ought for the good simple old mother, whom Pope tendt. d so 
fectionately. Those men would have scarcely valued her, 
it that they knew how much he loved her, and that they 
eased him by thinking of her. If his early letters to women 
e affected and insincere, whenever he speaks about this one, 
is with a childish tenderness and an almost sacred simplicity. 

I 1 7 13, when young Mr. Pope had, by a series of the most 
itonishing victories and dazzling achievements, seized the 
ov/n of poetry, and the town was in an uproar of admiration, 
• hostility, for the young chief ; when Pope, was issuing his 
mous decrees for the translation of the " Iliad ; " when Dennis 
id the lower critics were hooting and assailing him ; when 
ddison and the gentlemen of his court were sneering with 

* " To Mr. Richardson. 

Twickenham, June 10, ly^iZ- 
" As I know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hope that this day 
r wishes would have met, and brought you hither. And this for tlie very reason, 
lich possibly might hinder you coming, that my poor mother is dead. I thank 
)d, her death was as easy as her life was innocent ; and as it cost her not a groan, 
even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an .expression oi tranquillity, 
y, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it. It would afford the 
est image of a saint expired that ever painting drew ; and it would be the greatest 
ligation which even that obliging art could ever bestow on a friend, if you could 
me and sketch it for me. I am sure, if there be no very prevalent^ obstacle, you 

II leave any common business to do this ; and I hope to see you this evening, as 
e as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter flower is faded. I 
11 defer her interment till to-morrow night. I knov/ you love me, or I could not 
ve writen this — I could not (at this time) have written at all. Adieu ! May yoii 
; as happily ! Yours," &c. 

t " Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his nephew, a Guinea 
ider, came in. ' Nephew,' said Sir Godfrey, ' you have the honor of seeing thctwo 
eatest men in the world.' — ' I don't know how great you may be,' said the Guinea 
m, ' but I dont Uke your looks : I have often bought a man ijiuch better than both 

you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas.' "—Dr. Warburton. 
fence's Anecdotes. 



] 

488 B: NO LIS II IIUMOKIsrs. \ 

sickening hearts at the prodigious triumphs of the young cc I 
queror ; when Pope, in a fever of victory, and genius, and ho] ' 
and anger was struggling through the crowd of shouting frien 
and furious detractors to his temple of Fame, his old moth 
writes from the country, " My deare," says she—" My dea i 
there's Mr. Blount, of Mabel Durom, dead the same day thj 
Mr. Inglelield died. Your sister is well ; but your brother j 
sick. My service to Mrs. Blount, and all that ask of me. 1 
hope to hear from you, and that you are well, which is my da I 
prayer ; and this with my blessing." The triumph marches I ' 
and the car of the young conqueror, the hero of a hundr 
brilliant victories : the fond mother sits in the quiet cottage 
home and says, " I send you my daily prayers ; and I bless yc 
my deare." 

In our estimate of Pope's character, let us always take in 
account that constant tenderness and fidelity of affection whi. 
pervaded and sanctified his life, and never forgot that matern 
benediction.'* It accompanied him always : his life seer 
purified by those artless and hearfclt prayers. And he seer 
to have received and deserved the fond attachment of the oth 
rnembers of his family. It is not a little touching to read 
Spence of the enthusiastic admiration with which his half-sist 
regarded him, and the simple anecdote by which she illustrat 
her love. "I think no man was ever so little fond of money 
Mrs. Rackettsays about her brother, " I think my brother wh( 
he was young read more books than any man in the world ; " ai 
srhe falls to telling stories of his school-days, and the manner ; 
which his master at Twyford ill-used hini. " I don't think n 
brother knew what fear was," she continues ; and the accounts . 
Pope's friends bear out this character for courage. When 1, 
had , exasperated the dunces, and threats of violence and pei 
sonal assault were brought to him, the dauntless Uttle champicj 
never for one instant allowed fear to disturb him, or cond| 
scended to take any guard in his daily walks, except occasioij 
ally his faithful dog to bear him company. " I had rather d:^ 
at once," said the gallant little cripple, "than live in fear (j 
those rascals." j 

* Swift's mention of him as one - ! 



" whose filial piety excels ', 

Whatever Grecian story tells,'' -. 

is well known. And a sneer of Walpole's may be put to a better use than he evd 
intended it for, h propos ot tliis subject.— He charitably sneers, in oneof his letters, s ! 
^pence's " fondling an old mother— in imitation of Pope ! " 



PRIOR, GAY, AN J) POPE. 



489 



As for his death, it was what the noble Arbuthnot asked 
d enjoyed for himself — a euthanasia — a beautiful end. A 
rfect benevolence, aifection, serenity, hallowed the departure 
that high soul. Even in the very hallucinations of his brain, 
d weaknesses of. his delirium, there was something ahuost 
cred, Spence describes him in his last days, looking up and 
th a rapt gaze as if something had suddenly passed before 
m. " He said to me, 'What's that?' pointing into the air 
th a very steady regard, and then looked down and said, with 
smile of the greatest softness, " 'Twas a vision!" He 
ughed scarcely ever, but his companions describe his coun- 
Qance as often illuminated by a peculiar sweet smile. 

"When," said Spence,* the kind anecdotistwhom Johnson 
spised — "When I was telling Lord Bolingbroke that Mr. 
5pe, on every catching and recovery of his mind, was always 
ying something kindly of his present or absent friends ; and 
at this was so surprising, as it seemed to me as if humanity 
id outlasted understanding, Lord Bolingbroke said, ' It has 
' and then added, ' I never in my life knew a man who had 
tender a heart for his particular friends, or a more general 
endship for mankind. I have known him these thirty years, 

id value myself more for that man's love than ' Here," 

)ence says, " St. John sunk his head, and lost his voice in 
ars," The sob which finishes the epitaph is finer than words, 
is the cloak thrown over the father's face in the famous 
reek picture, which hides the grief and heightens it. 

In Johnson's " Life of Pope " you will find described, with 
ther a malicious minuteness, some of the personal habits and 
firmities of the great little Pope. His body was crooked, he 
IS so short that it w^as necessary to raise his chair in order to 
ace him on a level with other people at table. f He was 
wed up in a buckram suit every morning and required a nurse 

Joseph Spence was the son of a clergyman, near Winchester. He was a short 
|ie at Eton, and afterwards became a FeHow of New College, Oxford, a clergyman, 
'1 professor of poetry. He was a friend of Thomson's, whose reputation he aided, 
published an " Essay on the Odyssey " in 1 726, which introduced him to Pope, 
erybody liked him. His '• Anecdotes '' were placed, while still in MS., at the 
vice of John-son and also of Malone. They were published by Mr. Singer in 
20. 

He speaks of Arbuthnot's having helped him through " that long disease, my 
But not only was he so feeble as is implied in his use of the " buckram," but " it 
w appears,'' says Mr. Peter .Cunningham, "from his unpublished letters, that, like 
ird Hervey, he had recourse to ass's-milk for the preservation of his health." It is 
his lordship's use of that simple beverage that he alludes when he says— 

" Let Sporus tremble ! — A. What, that thing of silk, 
Sporus, that mere white-curd of ass's milk ? " 



49 o ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

like a child. His contemporaries reviled these misfortu'.j 
with a strange acrimony, and made his poor deformed per<] 
the butt for many a bolt of heavy wit. The facetious I: 
Dennis, in speaking of him, says, " If you take the first let 
of Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first and 1 
letters of his surname, you have A. P. E." Pope catalogu 
at the end of the Dunciad, with a rueful precision, other pre 
names, besides Ape, which Dennis called him. That gr 
critic pronounced Mr. Pope as a little ass, a fool, a coward 
Papist, and therefore a hater of Scripture, and so forth, 
must be remembered that the Pillory was a flourishing a 
popular institution in those days. Authors stood in it in t 
body sometimes : and dragged their enemies thither moral 
hooted them with foul abuse, and assailed them with garha 
of the gutter. Poor Pope's figure w^as an easy one for the 
clumsy caricaturists to draw. Any stupid hand could draw 
hunchback, and write Pope underneath. They did. A lit 
was published against Pope, with such a frontispiece. Tl' 
kind of rude jesting was an evidence not only of an ill-natuii 
but a dull one. When a child makes a pun, or a lout brea 
out into a laugh, it is some very obvious combination of wore 
or discrepancy of objects, which provokes the infantine satiri<: 
or tickles the boorish wag ; and many of Pope's revile 
laughed, not so much because they were wicked, as becau 
they knew no better. 

Without the utmost sensibility. Pope could not have becj 
the poet he was; and through his life, however much he pri 
tested that he disregarded their abuse, the coarse ridicule < 
his opponents stung and tore him. One of Gibber's pamphle 
coming into Pope's hands, whilst Richardson the painter wi 
with him. Pope turned round and said, " These things are \x\ 
diversions ; " and Richardson, sitting by whilst Pope perus^' 
the libel, said he saw his features '' writhing with anguisll 
How little human nature changes ! Can't one see that litt 
figure ? C^an't one fancy one is reading Horace ,? Can't oi 
fancy one is speaking of to-day ? 

The tastes and sensibilities of Pope, which led him to ci 
tivate the society of persons of fine manners, or wit, or tasi 
or beauty, caused him to shrink equally from that shabby ai 
boisterous crew which formed the rank and file of literatu 
111 ins time : and he was as unjust to these men as they to hil 
The delicate little creature sickened at habits and compai 
winch were quite tolerable to robuster men : and in the famoi 
feud between Pope and the Dunces, and without attributir 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE. .^i 

ny peculiar wrong to either, one can quite understand how the 
vo parties should so hate each other. As I fancy, it was a 
)rt of necessity that when Pope's triumph passed, Mr. Ad- 
ison and his men should look rather contemptuously down on 
from their balcony ; so it was natural for Dennis and Tib. 
aid, and Welsted and Gibber, and the worn and hungry press^ 
en in the crowd below, to howl at him and assail him. And 
ope was more savage to Grub Street than Grub Street was 

Pope. "The thong with which he lashed them was dreadful ; 
fired upon that howling crew such shafts of fiame and 
Dison, he slew and wounded so fiercely, that in reading the 
Dunciad " and the prose lampoons of Pope, one feels disposed 
ide against the ruthless little tyrant, at least to pity those 
retched folks upon whom he was so unmerciful. It was Pope, 
id Swift to aid him, who established among us the Grub Street 
adition. He revels in base descriptions of poor men's want ; 
ii gloats over poor Dennis's garret, and flannel-nightcap, 
fd red stockings ; he gives instructions how to find Curll's 
ithors, the historian at the tallow-chandler's under the blind 
ch in Petty France, the two translators in bed together, the 
3et in the cock-loft in Budge Row, whose landlady keeps the 
dder. It was Pope, I fear, who contributed, more than any 
an who ever lived, to depreciate the literary calling. It was 
Dt an unprcsperous one before that time, as we have seen ; 

least there were great prizes in the profession which had 
ade Addison a Minister, and Prior an Ambassador, and 
:eele a Commissioner, and Swift all but a Bishop, The prO' 
ssion of letters was ruined by that libel of the " Dunciad." 

authors were wretched and poor before, if some of them 
/ed in haylofts, of which their landladies kept the ladders, at 
ast nobody came to disturb them in their straw ; if three of 
iem had but one coat between them, the two remained invis- 
le in the garret, the third, at any rate, appeared decently at 

e coffee-house and paid his twopence like a gentleman. It 
as Pope that dragged into light all this jDOverty and mean- 
5SS, and held up those wretched shifts and rags to public 
zlicule. It was Pope that has made generations of the reading 
orld (delighted with the mischief, as who would not be that read 
?) believe that author and wretch, author and rags, author 
id dirt, author and drink, gin, cow-heel, tripe, poverty, duns, 
liliffs, squalling children and clamorous landladies, were always 
isociated together. The condition of authorship began to fall 
Dm the days of the " Dunciad : " and I believe in my heart 

at much of that obloquy which has since pursued our calling 



.o-* ENGLISH HUMORISTS. \ 

was occasioned by Pope's libels and wicked wit. Everybod | 
read those. Everybody was familiarized with the idea of tb| 
poor devil, the author. The manner is so captivating the I 
young authors practise it, and begin their career with satin i 
It is so easy to write, and so pleasant to read ! to fire a she' 
that makes a giant wince, perhaps ; and fancy one's self h; 
conqueror. It is easy to shoot — but not as Pope did. Th 
shafts of his satire rise sublimely : no poet's verse ever mounte 
higher than that wonderful flight with which the " Dunciad 
concludes : — * 

" She comes, she comes! the sable throne behold 
Of Night pnmeval and of Cliaos old ; 
Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, 
And all its varying rainbows die away ; 
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, 
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. 
As, one by one, at dread Medea's strain 
The sick'ning stars fade off the ethereal plain ; 
As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd, 
Closed, one by one, to everlasting rest ;— 
Thus, at her felt approach and secret might. 
Art after Art goes out, and all is night. 
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, 
Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head ; 
Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, 
Shrinks to her second cause and is no more. 
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires. 
And, unawares, Morality expires. 
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine, 
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine, 
Lo ! thy dread empire. Chaos, is restored. 
Light dies before thy uncrcating word ; 
Thy hand, great Anarch, kts the curtain fall, 
And universal darkness buries all." t 

In these astonishing lines Pope reaches, I think, to the vei 
greatest height which his sublime art has attained, and shov\ 
himself the equal of all poets of all times. It is the brightes 
ardor, the loftiest assertion of truth, the most generous M'isdon 
illustrated by the noblest jDoetic figure, and spoken in wore 
the aptest, grandest, and most harmonious. It is heroic courag 
speaking : a splendid declaration of righteous v/rath and wa^ 
It is the gage flung down, and the silver trumpet ringing del 
ance to falsehood and tyranny, deceit, dulness, superstition. ] 
is Truth, the champion, shining and intrepid, and fronting th 

* " He (Johnson) repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concludim 
lines of the ' Dunciad.' " — Boswell. 

t " Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson (on the authority 
of Spence), that Pope himself admired these lines so much that when he repeated 
them his voice faltered, ' And well it might, sir,' said Johnson, *for they are nobk 
lines.'" — J. BoswELL, junior. 

A 



FRIOK. GA V, AND POPE. 4(^3 

^reat world-tyrant with armies of slaves at his back. It is a 
vonderful and victorious single combat, in that great battle, 
vhich has always been waging since society began. 

In speaking of a work of consummate art one does not try 
o show what it actually is, for that were vain ; but what it is 
ike, and what are the sensations produced in the mind of him 
vho views it. And in considering Pope's admirable career, I 
im forced into similitudes drawn from other courage and great- 
less, and into comparing him with those who achieved triumphs 
n actual war. I think of the works of young Pope as I do of 
he actions of young Bonaparte or young Nelson. In their 
:ommon life you will find frailties ancl meannesses, as great as 
he vices and follies of the meanest men. But in the presence 
)f the great occasion, the great soul flashes out, and conquers 
ranscendent. In thinking of the splendor of Pope's young 
ictories, of his merit, unequalled as his renown, I hail and 
alute the achieving genius, and do homage to the pen of a 
lero. 



494 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, ANID FLELDLNG. 

I SUPPOSE, as long as novels last and authors aim at interes 
ing their public, there must always be in the story a virtuoii 
and gallant hero, a wicked monster his opposite, and a prett 
girl who finds a champion ; bravery and virtue conquer beauty! 
and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number V. 
pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justicj 
overtakes him and honest folks come by their own. Therl 
never was perhaps a greatly popular storv but this simple plci 
was carried through it : mere satiric wit is addressed to a clasl 
of readers and thinkers quite different to those simple soul I 
who laugh and weep over the novel. I fancy very few ladicj 
indeecl, for instance, could be brought to like "Gulliver 
heartily, and (putting the coarseness and difference of manner 
out of the question) to relish the wonderful satire of " Jona 
than Wild." In that strange apologue the author takes *for ;' 
hero the greatest rascal, coward, traitor, t3Tant, hvpocrite, tha 
his wit and experience, both large in this matter, 'could enabL 
him to devise or depict ; he accompanies this villain througl 
all the actions of his life, with a grinning deference and a won 
derful mock respect : and doesnt leave him, till he is danglin< 
at the gallows, when the satirist makes him a low bow an! 
wishes the scoundrel good-day. 

It was not by satire of this sort, or by scorn and contempt 
that_ Hogarth achieved his vast popularity and acquired his rep 
utation.* His art is quite simple,! he speaks popular parable; 

* Coleridge speaks of the "beautiful female faces" in Hogarth's pictures " i, 

to hhi y. ^^^%l *'i.^/^t^"^^ "^^'^^ extinguished that love of beauty which belongec 
to hnn as a poet." — The Fncjid. * 

r^.tlnw/'^f pleased with the reply of a gentleman, who, being asked which book In i 
te^^r Iv K ;"" r \'^/?P'' ^"^Y'^^-^/l 'Shakspeare' being asked which he es 
W hloH f ' ''^ '^"^ 'Hogarth. ' His graphic representations are indeed books i 

I^hS^ihlS wHSi' '™"^'' f^'t^' "^^"'"^ '' "•^''^- O^h- P^^^"- -^ '-' ^ 

unv:iSnz?r ^^^jS?^rl;:^i|;;f-::,--1f ^ --l P^-^e would almos i 

in thif'ln ;i° V''""^ "In ^^f Ji^^'c^^Ious subjects of Hogarth have necessarily something j 
lU i T us like them ; some are indifferent to us, some in their nature repul- 
sive and only made interesting by the wonderful skill and truth to nature in the i 

TWha iJ 1?-'' water chases away and disperses the contagion of the bad 1 
rhey have this m them, besides, that they bring us acquainted wifh the everv-day 1 
P rJn^ ff e,~they give us skill to detect those gradations of sense and ^•irtuc (which 
escape the careless or fastidious observer) in the circumstances of the workUbout us; 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 4^5 

to interest simple hearts, and to inspire them with pleasure 
or pity or warning and terror. Not one of his tales but is as 
easy as " Goody Twoshoes ; " it is the moral of Tommy was 
a naughty boy and the master flogged him, Jacky was a good 
boy and had plumcake, which pervades the whole works of the 
homely and famous English moralist. And if the moral is 
written in rather too large letters after the fable, we must re- 
member how simple the scholars and schoolmaster both were, 
and like neither the less because they are so artless and honest. 
It was a maxim of Dr. Harrison's," Fielding says, in " Amelia," 
— speaking of the benevolent divine and philosopher who rep- 
resents the good principle in that novel — " that no man can 
descend below himself, in doing any act which may contribute 
to protect an innocent person, or to bring a rogue to the gallows T 
The moralists of that age had no compunction, you see ; they 
had not begun to be skeptical about the theory of punishment, 
and thought that the hanging of a thief was a spectacle for 
edification. Masters sent their apprentices, fathers took their 
children, to see Jack Sheppard or Jonathan Wild hanged, and 
it was as undoubting subscribers to this moral law, that Fielding 
wrote and Hogarth painted. Except in one instance, where, 
in the madhouse scene in the " Rake's Progress," the girl 

and prevent that disgust at common life, tliat t<zdium quotidianarum formarum 
which an unrestricted passion for ideal forms and beauties is in danger of producing. 
In this, as in many other things^ they are analogous to the best novels of Smollett 
and Fielding.'' — Charles Lamb. 

" It has been observed that Hogarth's pictures are exceedingly unlike any other 
lepreseAtations of the same kind of subjects — that they form a class, and have a 
character, peculiar to themselves. It may be v^rorth while to consider in what this gen- 
eral distinction consists. 

" In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, historical ■^iciwxt^', and if 
:what Fielding says be true, that his novel of ' Tom Jones' ought to be regarded as an 
epic prose-poem, because it contained a regular development of fable; manners, char- 
acter, and passion, the compositions of Hogarth will, m like manner, be found to have 
a higher claim to the title of epic pictures than many which have of late arrogated 
that denomination to themselves. When we say that Hogarth treated his subject 
historically, we mean that his works represent the manners and humors of mankind 
in action, and their characters by varied expression. Everything in his pictures ha^ 
life and motion in it. Not only' does the business of the scene never stand still, but 
every feature and muscle is put into full play ; the exact feeling of the moment is 
brought out, and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped 
on the canvas forever. The expression is always taken e7t passant, in a state of pro 
gress or change, and, as it were, at the salient point. * * * * His figures are not 
like the back -ground on which they are painted : even the pictures on the wall have a 
peculiar look of their own. Again, with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history. 
Hogarth's heads have all the reality and correctness of portraits. He gives the ex- 
tremes of character and expression, but he gives them with perfect truth and accuracy. 
This is, in fact, what distinguishes his compositions from all others of the same 
kind, that they are equally remote from caricature, and from mere still life. * * * 
His faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet never (we believe in any single 
instance) go beyond it." — Hazlitt. 



496 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



whom he has ruined is represented as still tending and weep* 
ing over him in his insanity, a glimpse of pity for his rogues 
never seems to enter honest Hogarth's mind. There's not the \ 
slightest doubt in the breast of the jolly Draco. \ 

The famous set of pictures called " Marriage \ la Mode," 
and which are now exhibited in the National Gallery in London, ■ 
contains the most important and highly wrought of the Ho- \ 
garth comedies. The care and method with which the moral % 
grounds of these pictures are laid is as remarkable as the wit ^ 
and skill of the observing and dexterous artist. He has to i 
describe the negotiations for a marriage pending between the \ 
daughter of a rich citizen Alderman and young Lord Viscount \ 
Squanderfield, the dissipated son of a gouty old Earl. Pride \ 
and pomposity appear in every accessory surrounding the Earl, i 
He sits in gold lace and velvet — as how should such an Earl \ 
wear anything but velvet and gold lace ? His coronet is every- \ 
where : on his footstool, on which reposes one gouty toe turned j 
out ; on the sconces and looking-glass ; on the dogs ; on his j 
lordship's very crutches ; on his great chair of state and the ; 
great baldaquin behind him ; under which he sits pointing ma- j 
jestically to his pedigree, which shows that his race is sprung ) 
from the loins of William the Conqueror, and confronting the | 
old Alderman from the City, who has mounted his sword for \ 
the occasion, and wears his Alderman's chain, and has brought j 
a bag full of money, mortgage-deeds, and thousand-pound notes, i 
for the arrangement of the transaction pending between them. ; 
Whilst the steward (a Methodist — therefore a hypocrite, and | 
cheat : for Hogarth scorned a Papist and a Dissenter,) is nego- j 
tiating between the old couple, their children sit together, united \ 
but apart. My lord is admiring his countenance in the glass, \ 
while his bride is twiddling her marriage ring on her pocket-. j 
handkerchief, and listening with rueful counten'ance to Coun- j 
sellor Silvertongue, who has been drawing the settlements. ' 
The girl is pretty, but the painter, with a curious watchfulness, i 
has taken care to give her a likeness to her father ; as in the \ 
young Viscount's face you see a resemblance to the Earl, his | 
noble sire. The sense of the coronet pervades the picture, as i 
it is supposed to do the mind of its wearer. The pictures | 
round the room are sly hints indicating the situation of the '\ 
parties about to marry. A martyr is led to the fire ; Androm- \ 
eda is offered to sacrifice ; Judith is going to slay Holofernes. ^j 
There is the ancestor of the house (in the picture it is the Earl 1 
himself as a young man), with a comet over his head, indica^ ; 
ting that the career of the family is to be brilliant and brief. In ] 

I 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FL ELDING. 



497 



the second picture, the old lord must be dead, for Madam has 
^ow the Countess's coronet over her bed and toilet-glass, 
and, sits listening to that dangerous Counsellor Silvertongue, 
whose portrait now actually hangs up in her room, whilst the 
counsellor takes his ease on the sofa by her side, evidently the 
familiar of the house, and the confidant of the mistress. My 
lord takes his pleasure elsewhere than at home, whither he re- 
turns jaded and tipsy from the " Rose," to find his wife yawning 
in her drawing-room, her whist-party over, and the daylight 
streaming in ; or he amuses fiimself with the very worst com- 
pany abroad, whilst his wife sits at home listening to foreign 
singers, or wastes her money at auctions, or, worse still, seeks 
amusement at masquerades. The dismal end is known. My 
lord draws upon the counsellor, who kills him, and is apprehended 
whilst endeavoring to escape. My lady goes back perforce to 
to the Alderman in the City, and faints upon reading Counseller 
Silvertongue's dying speech at Tyburn, where the counsellor 
has. been executed for sending his lordship out of the world. 
Moral : — don't listen to evil silver-tongued counsellors : don't 
marry a man for his rank, or a woman for her money; don't fre- 
quent foolish auctions and masquerade balls unknown to your 
husband : don't have wicked companions abroad and neglect 
your wife, otherwise you will be run through the body, and ruin 
will ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn. The people are all 
naughty, and Bogey carries them all ofT. In the " Rake's Pro- 
gress," a loose life is ended by a similar sad catastrophe. It is 
the spendthrift coming into possession of the wealth of the pa- 
ternal miser ; the prodigal surrounded by flatterers, and wasting 
his substance on the very worst company ; the bailiffs, the gam- 
bling-house, and Bedlam for an end. . In the famous story of 
" Industry and Idleness," the moral is pointed in a manner 
similarly clear. Fair-haired Frank Goodchild smiles at his 
work, whilst naughty Tom Idle snores over his loom. Frank 
reads the edifying ballads of " Whittington " and the " London 
'Prentice," whilst that reprobate Tom Idle prefers " Moll 
Flanders," and drinks hugely of beer. Frank goes to church 
of a Sunday, and warbles hymns from the gallery ; while Tom 
lies on a tombstone outside playing at " halfpenny-under-the- 
hat " with street blackguards, and is deser^^edly caned by the 
beadle. Frank is made overseer of the business, whilst Tom is 
sent to sea. Frank is taken into partnership and marries his 
master's daughter, sends out broken victuals to the poor, and 
listens in his nightcap and gown, with the lovely Mrs. Good- 
child by his side, to the nuptial music of the City bands and 



^^8 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



the marrow-bones and cleavers ; whilst Idle Tom, returned ^ 
from sea, shudders in a garret lest the officers are coming to i 
take him for picking pockets. The Worshipful Francis Good- -i 
child, Esq., becomes Sheriff of London, and partakes of the j 
most splendid dinners which money can purchase or Alderman ' 
devour ; whilst poor Tom is taken up in a night-cellar, with ^ 
that one-eyed and disreputable accomplice who first taught him | 
to play chuck-farthing on a Sunday. What happens next? \ 
Tom is brought up before the justice of his country, in the per- \ 
son of Mr. Alderman Goodchild, who weeps as he recognizes 1 
his old brother 'prentice, as Tom's one-eyed friend peaches on \ 
him, and the clerk makes out the poor rogue's ticket for New- ' 
gate. Then the end comes. Tom goes to Tyburn in a cart ■ 
with a coffin in it ; whilst the Right Honorable Francis ' 
Goodchild, Lord Mayor of London, proceeds to his Mansion ' 
House, in his gilt coach with four footmen and a sword-bearer, ■ 
whilst the Companies of London march in the august proces- ■ 
sion, whilst the trainbands of the City fire their pieces and get < 
drunk in his honor ; and — O crowning delight and glory of all 
— whilst his Majesty the King looks out from his royal balcony, : 
with his ribbon on his breast, and his Queen and his star by i 
his side, at the corner house of St. Paul's Churchyard. ; 

How the times have changed ! The new post office now ■ 
not disadvantageously occupies that spot where the scaffolding ! 
is in the picture, where the tipsy trainband-man is lurching ■ 
against the post, with his wig over one eye, and the 'prentice- | 
boy is trying to kiss the pretty girl in the gallery. Passed away • 
'prentice-boy and pretty girl ! Passed away tipsy trainband-man ; 
with wig and bandolier? On the spot where Tom Idle (for 
whom I have an unaffected pity made his exit from this wicked 
world, and where you see the hangman smoking his pipe as he 
reclines on the gibbet and views the hills of Harrow or Hamp- 
stead beyond, a splendid marble arch, a vast and modern city 
— clean, airy, painted drab, populous with nursery-maids and 
children, the abode of wealth and comfort — the elegant, the 
prosperous, the polite Tyburnia rises, the most respectable 
district in the habitable globe ! 

In that last plate of the London Apprentices, in which the 
apotheosis of the Right Honorable Francis Goodchild is drawn, 
a ragged fellow is represented in the corner of the simple, 
kindly piece, offering for sale a broadside, purporting to con- - 
tain an account of the appearance of the ghost of Tom Idle, 
executed at Tyburn. Could Tom's ghost have made its ap- 
f^earance in 1847, ^^^ "^^ ^^^ '747> what changes would have 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 499 

been remarked by that astonished escaped criminal ! Over 
that road which the hangman used to travel constantly, and 
the Oxford stage twice a week, go ten thousand carriages every 
day ; over yonder road, by which Dick Turpin fled to Windsor, 
and Squire Western journeyed into town, when he came to 
take up his quarters at the " Hercules Pillars " on the outskirts 
of London, what a rush of civilization and order flows now ! 
What armies of gentlemen with umbrellas march to banks, and 
chambers, and counting-houses ! What regiments of nursery- 
maids ard pretty infantry; what peaceful processions of police- 
men, what light broughams and what gay carriages, what swarms 
of bus}' apprentices and artificers, riding on omnibus-roofs, 
pass daily and hourly ! Tom Idle's times are quite changed : 
many of the institutions gone into disuse which were admired 
in his day. There's more pity and kindness and a better 
chance for poor Tom's successors now than at that simpler 
period when Fielding hanged him and Hogarth drew him. 

To the student of history, these admirable works must be 
invaluable, as they give us the most complete and truthful pic- 
ture of the manners, and even the thoughts, of the past cen- 
tury. We look, and see. pass before us the England of a 
hundred years ago — the peer in his drawing-room, the lady of 
fashion in her apartment, foreign singers surrounding her, and 
the chambers filled with gewgaws in the mode of that day ; the 
church, with its quaint florid architecture and singing congre- 
gation ; the parson with his great wig, and the beadle with his 
cane ; all these are represented before us, and we are sure of 
the truth of the portrait. We see how the Lord Mayor dines 
in state ; how the prodigal drinks and sports at the bagnio ; 
how the poor girl beats hemp in Bridewell ; how the thief di- 
vides his booty and drinks his punch at the night-cellar, and 
how he finishes his career at the gibbet. We may depend on 
the perfect accuracy of ^lese strange and varied portraits ctf 
the by-gone generation : we see one of Walpole's Members of 
Parliament chaired after his election, and the lieges celebrating 
the event, and drinking confusion to the Pretender; we see the 
grenadiers and the trainbands of the City marching out to meet 
the enemy ; and have before us, with sword and firelock, and 
white Hanoverian horse embroidered on the cap, the very fig- 
ures of the men who ran away with Johnny Cope, and who con- 
quered at CuUoden. The Yorkshire wagon rolls into the inn 
yard ; the country parson, in his jack-boots, and his bands and 
short, cassock, comes trotting into town, and we fancy it is Par 
son Adams, with his sermons in his pocket. • The Salisbury fly 



500 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

sets forth from the old " Angel '■ — you see the passengers en- 
tering the great heavy vehicle, up the wooden steps, their hats! 
tied down with handkerchiefs over their faces, and under theirj 
arms, sword, hanger, and case-bottle ; the landlady — apoplectic} 
with the liquors in her own bar — is tugging at the bell ; thei 
hunchbacked postilion — he may have ridden the leaders to Hum- 
phrey Clinker — is begging a gratuity ; the miser is grumbling ati 
the bill ; Jack of the " Centurion " lies on the top of the clumsyi 
vehicle, with a soldier by his side — it may be Smollet's Jack; 
Hatchway — it has a likeness to Lismahago. You see the 
suburban fair and the strolling company of actors ; the pretty 
milkmaid singing under the window of the enraged French 
musician : it is such a girl as Steele charmingly described in 
the Guardian^ a few years before this date, singing, under Mr. 
Ironside's window in Shire Lane, her pleasant carol of a May. 
morning. You see noblemen and blacklegs bawling and bet- 
ting in the Cockpit; you see Garrick as he was arrayed in 
" King Richard ; " Macheath and Polly in the dresses which 
they wore when they charmed our ancestors, and when noble- 
men in blue ribbons sat on the stage and listened to their de- 
lightful music. You see the ragged French soldiery, in their 
white coats and cockades, at Calais Gate : they are of the regi-^ 
ment, very likely, which friend Roderick Random joined be- 
fore he was rescued by his preserver Monsieur de Strap, with; 
whom he fought on the famous day of Dettingen. You see the 
judges on the bench ; the audience laughing in the pit ; the 
student in the Oxford theatre ; the citizen on his country walk ; 
you see Broughton the boxer, Sarah Malcolm the murdefess, 
Simon Lovat the traitor, John Wilkes the demagogue, leering 
at you with that squint which has become historical, and that 
face which, ugly as it was, he said he could make as captivating 
to woman as the countenance of the handsomest beau in town. I 
All these sights and people are with you. After looking in the j 
" Rake's progress " at Hogarth's picture of St. James's Palace \ 
Gate, you may people the street, but little altered within these j 
hundred years, with the gilded carriages and thronging chair- 1 
men that bore the courtiers your ancestors to Queen Caro- j 
line's drawing-room more than a hundred years ago. \ 

What manner of man * was he who executed these portraits 1 

* Hogarth (whose family name was Hogart) was the grandson of a Westmoreland i 
yeoman. His father came to London, and was an author and schoolmaster. Wil- I 
ham was born in 1698 (according to the most probable conjecture) in the parish of St. i 
Martin Ludgate. He was early apprenticed to an engraver of arms on plate. Tha i 
following touches are from his " Anecdotes of Himself." (Edition of 1833.)— ' 

" As I had naturally a good eye, and a fondness for drawing, shows of all sorts 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. ^01 

•—SO various, so faithful, and so admirable ? In the National 
Collection of Pictures most of us have seen the best and most 

rave me uncommon pleasure when an infant ; and mimicry, common to all children, 
was remarkable in me. An early access to a neighboring painter drew my attention 
from play ; and I was, at every possible opportunity, employed in making drawings. 
I picked up an acquaintance of the same turn, and soon learnt to draw the alphabet 
ifrith great correctness. My exercises, when at school, were more remarkable for the 
lornaments which adorned them, than for the exercise itself. In the former, I soon 
ifound that blockheads with better memories could much surpass me; but for the 
iiatter I was particularly distinguished. * * * * 

' " I thought it still more unlikely that by pursuing the common method, and copy- 
ing old drawings, I could ever attain the power of making new designs, which was my 
first and greatest ambition. I therefore endeavored to habituate myself to the exer- 
cise of a sort of technical memory ; and by repeating in my own mind the parts of 
which objects were composed, I could by degrees combine and put them down with 
my pencil. Thus, with all the drawbacks which resulted from the circumstances I 
have mentioned, I had one material advantage over my competitors, viz. : the early 
habit I thus acquired of retaining in my mind's eye, without coldly copying it on the 
spot, whatever I intended to imitate. 

" The instant I became master of my own time, I determined to qualify myself 
for eneraving on copper. In this I readily got employment ; and frontispieces to 
booksfsuch as prints to ' Hudibras,' in twelves, &c., soon brought me into the way. 
But the tribe of booksellers remained as my father had left them * * * * which 
put me upon publishing on my own account. But here again I had to encounter a 
monopoly of printsellers, equally mean and destructive to the ingenious ; for the first 
plate I pubUshed, called ' The Taste of the Town,' in which the reigning follies were 
lashed, had no sooner begun to take a run, than I found copies of it in the print-shops, 
vendint^ at half-price, while the original prints were returned to me again, and I was 
thus obliged to sell the plate for whatever these pirates pleased to give me, as .there 
was no place of sale but at their shops. Owing to this, and other circumstances, by 
engraving, until I was near thirty, I could do little more than maintain myself ; but 
even then, I was a punctual paymaster. 

" I then married, and " . „ 

[But WiUiam is going too fast here. He made "a stolen union,' on March 23, 
1729, with Jane, daughter of Sir James Thornhill, sergeant-painter. For some 
time Sir James kept his heart and his purse-strings close, but " soon after became 
both reconciled and generous to the young couYtW — Hogarth' s Works, by 
Nichols and Steevens, vol. i. p. 44.] ^r. • u 

« —commenced painter of small Conversation Pieces, from twelve to fifteen inches 
high. This, being a novelty, succeeded for a few years." . j- j n 

[About this time Hogarth had summer lodgings at South Lambeth, and did all 
kinds of work, " embellishing" the " Spring Gardens '' at " Vauxhall," and the like. 
In 1 711, he published a satirical plate against Pope, founded on the well-known impu- 
tation against him of his having satirized the Duke of Chandos, under the name of 
Timon, in his poem on " Taste. " The plate represented a view of Burhngton House, 
with Pope whitewasliing it, and bespattering the Duke of Chandos's coach. Pope 
made no retort, and has never mentioned Hogarth.] . 

" Before I had done anything of much consequence in this walk, I entertained 
some hopes of succeeding in what the puffers in books call The Great Style of History 
Painting : so that without having had a stroke of this grand business before, 1 quit- 
ted small portraits and familiar conversations, and with a smile at my own tenienty, com- 
menced history-painter, and on a great staircase at St. Bartholomew s Hospital, 
painted two Scripture stories, the ' Pool of Bethesda'and the ' Good Samaritan, 
with figures seven feet high. * * * * But as religion, the great_ promoter of this 
style in other countries, rejected it in England, I was unwilling to sink into z portrait 
manufacturer; and still ambitious of being singular, dropped all expectations ot 
advantage from that source, and returned to the pursuit of my former dealings with 

^^^" As'to^poSait-pamting, the chief branch of the art by which a painter can pro- 



^o2 ENGLISH HUMORISTS, 

carefully finished series of his comic paintings, and the por-^ 
trait of his own honest face, of which the bright blue eyes shine 

■cure himself a tolerable livelihood, and the only one by which a lover of money can 
get a fortune, a man of very moderate talents may have great success in it, as the , 
artifice and address of a mercer is infinitely more useful than the abilities of a painter. 
By the manner in which the present race of professors in England conduct it, that also 
Incomes still life." 

***** 

" By this inundation of folly and puff '' {he has been speaking of the success of, 
Vanlo'o,ivho came over here ?;ii737), "I must confess I was much disgusted, and ' 
determined to try if by any means I could stem the torrent, and, by opposing^ end it. 
I laughed at the pretensions of these quacks in coloring, ridiculed their productions 
as feeble and contemptible, and asserted that it required neither taste nor talents to 
excel their most popular performances. This interference excited much enmity,- 
because, as my opponents told me, my studies were in another way. 'You talk, • 
added they, ' with ineffable contempt of portrait-painting ; if it is so easy a task, why | 
do not you convince the world, by painting a portrait yourself 1 ' Provoked at this | 
language, I, one day at the Academy in St. Martin's Lane, put the following ques- \ 
tion : ' Supposing any man, at this time, were to paint a portrait as well as Vandyke, | 
would it be seen or acknowledged, and could the artist enjoy the benefit or acquire J 
the reputation due to his performance ? ' \ 

" They asked me in reply, If I could paint one as well ? and I frankly answered, i 
I believed I could. * * * * , \ 

" Of the mighty talents said to be requisite for portrait-painting I had not the S 
most exalted opinion." \ 

Let us now hear him on the question of the Academy : — J! 

" To pester the three great estates of the empire, about twenty or thirty students | 
drawing after a man or a horse, appears, as must be acknowledged, foolish enough : | 
but the real motive is, that a few bustling characters, who have access to people of | 
rank, think tliey can thus get a superiority over their brethren, be appointed to places, i 
and liave salaries, as in France, for telling a lad v.'hen a leg or an^rm is too long or \ 
♦■00 short. '^- * * * '."i 

" France, ever aping the magnificence of other nations, has in its turn assumed a 
foppish kind of splendor sufiiicient to dazzle the eyes of the neighboring states, and ,;; 
draw vast sums of money from this country. * * * * \ 

" We return to our Royal Academy : I am told that one of their leading objects >. 
will be, sending young men abroad to study the antique statues, for such kind of i 
studies may sometimes improve an exalted genius, but they will not create it ; and ''■';. 
whatever has been the cause, this same travelling to Italy has, in several instances ■' 
that I have seen, reduced the student from nature, and led' him to paint marble fig- \ 
ures, in which he has availed himself of the great works of antiquity, as a coward i 
does when he puts on the armor of an Alexander ; for, with similar pretensions and ^'' 
similar vanity, the painter supposes he shall be adored as a second Raphael Urbino." S 

We must now hear him on his " Sigismunda: '' — .j 

" As the most violent and virulent abuse thrown on ' Sigismunda ' was from a set , ■ 
of miscreants, with whom I am proud of having been ever at war — I mean the ex- :\ 
pounders of the mysteries of old pictures — I have been sometimes told they were ; 
beneath my notice. This is true of them individually ; but as they have access to \ 
people of rank, who seem as happy in being cheated as these merchants are in cheat- '{ 
ing them, they have a power of doing much mischief to a modern artist. However ^-^ 
mean the vendor of poisons, the mineral is destructive: — to me its operation was J 
troublesome enough. All nature spreads so fast that now was the time for every little i 
dog in the profession to bark ! '' "*| 

Next comes a characteristic account of his controversy with Wilkes and Churchill.';! 

" The stagnation rendered it necessary that I should do some titnid thing, to re-^ 
cover my lost time, and stop a gap in my income. This drew forth my print of'.'^ 
* The Times,' a subject which tended to the restoration of peace and unanimity, and-?] 
put the opposers of these humane objects in a light which gave great offence tothose'.J 
who were trying to foment disaffection in the minds of the populace. One of the j 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 503 

"out from the canvas and give you an idea of that keen and 
brave look with which WilUam Hogarth regarded the world. 
No man was ever less of a hero : yju see him before you, and 
can fancy what he was — a jovial, honest London citizen, stout 
and sturdy ; a hearty, plain-spoken man,* loving his laugh, his 
friend, his glass, his roast-beef of Old England, and having a 
proper bourgeois scorn for French frogs, for mounseers, and 
wooden shoes in general, for foreign fiddlers, foreign singers, 
and, above all, for foreign painters, whom he held in the most 
amusing contempt. 

It must have been great fun to hear him rage against Cor- 
reggio and the Carracci ; to watch him thump the table and 
snap his fingers, and say, " Historical painters be hanged ; 
here's a man that will paint against any of them for a hundred 
pounds. Correggio's ' Sigismunda ! ' Look at Bill Hogarth's 
' Sigismunda ; ' look at my altar-piece at St. Mary Redcliffe, 

most notorious ^f them, till now my friend and flatterer, attacked me in the North 
Briton, in so infamous and malign a style, that he himself, when pushed even by his 
best friends, was driven to so poor an excuse as to say he was drunk when he wrote 
it. * * * 

" This renowned patriot's portrait, drawn like as I could as to features, and 
marked with some indications of his mind, fully answered my purpose. The ridicu- 
lous was apparent to every eye ! A Brutus ! A saviour of his country with such an 
I aspect — was so arrant a farce, that though it gave rise to much laughter in the look- 
I ers-on, galled both him and his adherents to the bone. * * * 

" Churchill, Wilkes's toad-echo, put the NoHh Briton into verse, in an Epistle to 
I Hogarth ; but as the abuse was precisely the same, except a little poetical heighten- 
I ing, which goes for nothing, it made no impression. * * * However, having an old 
i plate by me, with some parts ready, such as the back-ground and a dog, I began to 
■ consider how I could turn so much work laid aside to some account, and so patched 
! up a print of Master Churchill in the character of a Bear. The pleasure and pe- 
cuniary advantage which I derived from these two engravings, together with occa- 
, sionally riding on horseback, restored me to as much health as can be expected at my 
time of life.'' 

* It happened in the early part of Hogarth's life, that a nobleman who was un- 
commonly ugly and deformed came to sit to him for his picture. It was executed 
with a skill that did honor to the artist's abilities ; but the likeness was rigidly ob- 
i served, without even the necessary attention to compliment or flattery. The peer, 
disgusted at this counterpart of himself, never once thought of paying for a reflection 
that would only disgust him with his deformities. Some time was suffered to elapse 
before the artist applied for his money ; but afterwards many applications were made 
by him (who had then no need of a banker) for payment, without success. The 
painter, however, at last hit upon an expedient. * * * It was couched in the fol- 
lowing card : — 

" ' Mr. Hogarth's dutiful respects to Lord . Finding that he does not mean 

to have the picture which was drawn for him, is informed again of Mr. Hogarth's 
necessity for the money. If, therefore, his Lordship does not send for it, in three 
days it wll be disposed of, with the addition of a tail, and some other little append- 
ages, to Mr. Hare, the famous wild-beast man : Mr. Hogarth having given that gen- 
tleman a conditional promise of it, for an exhibition-picture, on his Lordship's 
refusal.' 

" This intimation had the desired eficcV—iVoris, by Nichols and Steevens, 
vol. i. p. 25. 



^04 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

Bristol ; look at my ' Paul before Felix/ and see whether I'lti 

not as good as the best of them.* 

Posterity has not quite confirmed honest Hogarth's opinion 
about his talents for the sublime. Although Swift could not 
see the difference between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, pos- 
terity has not shared the Dean's contempt for Handel ; the 
world has discovered a difference between tweedle-dee and 
tweedle-dum, and given a hearty applause and admiration to 
Hogarth, too, but not exactly as a painter of scriptural subjects, 
or as a rival of Correggio. It does not take away from one's 
liking for the man, or from the moral of his story, or the humor 
of it — from one's admiration for the prodigious merit of his, 
performances, to remember that he persisted to the last in be-; 
lieving that the world was in a conspiracy against him with re-) 
spect to his talents as an historical painter, and that a set of 
miscreants, as he called them, were employed to run his genius; 
down. They say it was Listen's firm belief, that he was a great 
and neglected tragic actor ; they say that every o«ie of us be- 
lie v^es in his heart, or would like to have others believe, that he; 
is something which he is not. One of the most notorious; 
of the " miscreants," Hogarth says, was Wilkes, who assailed! 
him in the North Briton ; the other was Churchill, who put the: 
North Briton attack in heroic verse, and published his " Epistlej 
to Hogarth." Hogarth replied by that caricature of Wilkes,- 
in which the patriot still figures before us, with his Satanic; 
grin and squint, and by a caricature of Churchill, in which he; 
is represented as a bear with a staff, on which, lie the first, lie 
the second — lie the tenth, are engraved in unmistakable letters.- 
There is very little mistake about honest Hogarth's satire : if 
he has to paint a man with his throat cut, he draws him with 
his head almost off ; and he tried to do the same for his ene- 
mies in this little controversy. " Having an old plate by me," 

* " Garrick himself was not more ductile to flattery. A word in favor 

• Sigismunda ' might have commanded a proof-print, or forced an original print out 

our artist's hands. * « * " 

" The following authenticated story of our artist (furnished by the late Mr.'^ 
Belchior, F. R. S., a surgeon of eminence) will also serve to show how much more 
easy it is to detect ill-placed or hyperbolical adulation respecting others, than wheu i 
appUed to ourselves. Hogarth, being at dinner with the great Cheselden and some? 
other company, was told that Mr. John Freke, surgeon of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, I 
a few evenings before at Dick's Coffee-H^use, had asserted that Greene was as': 
eminent in composition as Handel. 'That fellow Freke,' replied Hogarth, 'is- 
always shooting his bolt absurdly, one way or another. Handel is a giant in music; 
Greene only a light Florimel kind of a composer.' ' Ay,' says our artist's informant, 

* but at the same time Mr. Freke declared you were as good a portrait-painter as 

Vandyck.' — ♦ There he was right,' adds Hogarth, ' and so, by G , I am, give me 

my time and let me choose my subject.' " — Works^ by Nichols and Steevens, » 
vol. 1. pp. 236, 23;. 

•SI 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 505 

says he, " with some parts ready, such as the background, and 
a dog, I began to consider how I could turn so much work laid 
aside to some account, and so patched up a print of Master 
Churchill, in the character of a bear ; the pleasure and pecu- 
niary advantage which I derived from these two engravings, 
together with occasionally riding on horseback, restored me 
to^'as much health as I can expect at my time of life." 

And so he concludes his queer little book of Anecdotes ■ 
'' I have gone through the circumstances of a life which till 
lately passed pretty much to my own satisfaction, and I hope 
in no respect injurious to any other man. This I may safely 
assert, that I have done my best to make those about me toler- 
ably happy, and my greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an 
intentional injurv. What may follow, God knows." 

A queer account still exists of a holiday jaunt taken by 
Hogarth and four friends of his, who set out, like the redoubted 
Mr. Pickwick and his companions, but just a hundred years 
before thos^ heroes j and made an excursion to Gravesend, Roch- 
ester, Sheerness, and adjacent places.* One of the gentlemen 
noted down the proceedings of the journey, for which Hogarth 
and a brother artist made drawings. The book is chiefly curi- 
ous at this moment from showing the citizen life of those days, 
and the rough jolly style of merriment, not of the five com- 
panions merely, but of thousands of jolly fellows of their time. 
Hogarth and his friends, quitting the " Bedford Arms," Co- 
vent Garden, with a song, took water to Billingsgate, exchang- 
ing compliments with the bargemen as they went down the 
river. At Billingsgate, Hogarth made "a caracatura" of a 
facetious porter, called the Duke of Puddledock, who agreeably 
entertained the party with the humors of the place. Hence 
they took a Gravesend boat for themselves ; and straw to he 
upon, and a tilt over their heads, they say, and went down the 
river at night, sleeping and singing jolly choruses. _ 

They arrived at Gravesend at six, when they washed their 

faces and hands, and had their wigs powdered. Then they 

sallied forth for Rochester on foot, and drank by the way three 

pots of ale. At one o'clock they went to dinner with excel^ 

: lent port, and a quantity more beer, and afterwards Hogarth 

• and Scott played at hopscotch in the town hall. It would ap- 

' pear that they slept most of them in one room, and the chroni- 

I cler of the partv describes them all as waking at seven o clock, 

: and telling each other their dreams. You have rough sketches 

* He made this excursion in 1732, his companions being John ThornhiU (son ut 
Sir James), Scott the landscape-painter, Tothall, andForrest, 



^o6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

by Hogarth of the incidents of this holiday excursion. The| 
sturdy Httle painter is seen sprawUng over a plank to a boalj 
at Gravesend ; the whole company are represented in one de-i 
sign, in a fisherman's room, where they had all passed the 
night. One gentleman in a nightcap is shaving himself ; an- 
other is being shaved by the fisherman ; a third, with his hand- 
kerchief over his bald pate, is taking his breakfast ; and| 
Hogarth is sketching the whole scene. 

They describe at night how they returned to their quarters^ 
drank to their friends, as usual, emptied several cans of goodi 
flip, all singing merrily. 

It is a jolly party of tradesmen engaged at high jinks^ 
These were the manners and pleasures of Hogarth, of his time 
very likely, of men not very refined, but honest and merry. It 
is a brave London citizen, with John Bull habits, prejudices,i 
and pleasures.* 

Of Smollett's associates and manner of life the author of! 
the admirable " Humphrey Clinker " has given us an interest-: 
ing account, in that most amusing of novels.! 

* " Dr. Johnson made four lines once, on the death of poor Hogarth, whichj 
were equally true and pleasing ; I know not why Garrick's were preferred toj 
them : — 

" * The hand of him here torpid lies, 
That drew th' essential forms of grace ; 
Here, closed in death, th' attentive eyes, 
That saw the manners in the face,' 

" Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shown to me when I was too|; 
young to have a proper sense of them, was used to be very earnest that I should obtain i' 
the acquaintance, and if possible the friendship, of Dr. Johnson ; whose conversation! 
was, to the talk of other men, like Titian's painting compared to Hudson's, he said: 
' but don't you tell people now, that I say so,' continued he ; ' for the connoisseurs 
and I are at war, you know ; and because I hate them^ they think I hate Titian — and 
let them i ' * * * Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and he were talking about 
him one day, ' That man,' says Hogarth, ' is not contented with beheving the Bible ; 
but he fairly resolves, I think, to believe nothing but the Bible. Johnson,' added 
he, ' though so wise a fellow, is more like King David than King Solomon, for he 
says in his haste. All men are liars.^ " — Mrs. Piozzi. 

Hogarth died on the 26th of October, 1764. The day before his death, he was 
removed from his villa at Chiswick to Leicester Fields, " in a very weak condition, yet 
remarkably cheerful." He had just received an agreeable letter from Franklin, He 1 
lies buried at Chiswick. 

t " To Sir Watkin Phillips, Bart., of Jesus College, Oxon. 

" Dear Phillips, — In my last, I mentioned my having spent an evening with 
a society of authors, who seemed to be jealous and afraid of one another. My uncle 
was not at all surprised to hear me say I was disappointed in their conversation. ' A 
man may be very entertaining and instructive upon paper,' said he, * and exceedingly 
dull in common discourse. I have observed, that those who shine most in private 
company are but secondary stars in the constellation of genius. A small stock of , 
ideas is more easily managed, and sooner displayed, than a great quantity crowded 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, A^V FIELDLNG. qo; 

I have no doubt that this picture by Smollett is as faith- 
ful a one as any from the pencil of his kindred humorist, 
Hogarth. 

together. There is very seldom anything extraordinary in the appearance and 
address of a good writer ; whereas a dull author generally distinguishes himself bv 
some oddity or extravagance. For this reason 1 fancy that an assembly of grubs 
must be very diverting.' 

'' My curiosity being excited by this hint, 1 consulted my friend Dick Ivy, wI;o 
undertook to gratify it the very next day, which was Sunday last. He carried nic 

to dine with S , whom you and I have long known by his writings. He lives in 

the skirts of the town ; and every Sunday his house is open to all unfortunate brothers 
of the quill, whom he treats with beef, pudding, and potatoes, port, puncli, and 
Calvert's entire butt beer. He has fixed upon the first day of the week for the exer- 
cise of his hospitality, because some of his guests could not enjoy it on any other, fur 
reasons that I need not explain. I was civilly received in a plain, yet decent habi- 
tation, which opened backwards into a very pleasant garden, kept in excellent order ; 
and, indeed, I saw none of the outward signs of authorship either in the house cr tlic 
landlord, who is one of those few writers of the age that stand upon their own ffciin- 
dation, without patronage, and above dependence. If there was nothing characteristic 
in the entertainer, the company made ample amends for his want of singularity. 

" At two in the afternoon, I found myself one of ten messmates seated at tabic- ; 
and I question if the whole kingdom could produce such another assemblage of 
originals. Among their peculiarities, I do not mention those of dress, which may be 
purely accidental. What struck me were oddities originally produced by affectation, 
and afterwards confirmed by habit. One of them wore spectacles at dinner, and 
another his hat flapped ; though (as Ivy told me) the first was noted for having a 
seaman's eye when a bailiff was in the wind ; and the other was never known to labor 
under any weakness or defect of vision, except about five years ago, when he was 
complimented with a couple of black eyes by a player, with whom he had quarrelled 
in his drink. A third wore a laced stocking, and made use of crutches, because, once 
in his life, he had been laid up with a broken leg, though no man could leap over a 
stick with more agility. A fourth had contracted such an antipathy to the country, 
that he insisted upon sitting with his back towards the window that looked into the 
garden ; and when a dish of cauliflower was set upon the table, he snuffed up 
volatile salts to keep him from fainting ; yet this delicate person was the son of a 
cottager, born under a hedge, and had many years run wild among asses on a com- 
mon. A fifth affected distraction: when spoke to he always answered from the 
purpose. Sometimes he suddenly started up, and rapped out a dreadful oath ; some- 
times he burst out a laughing ; then he folded his arms, and sighed ; and then he 
hissed like fifty serpents. 

" At first, I really thought he was mad ; and, as he sat near me, began to be 
under some apprehensions for my own safety ; when our landlord, perceiving me 
alarmed, assured me aloud that I had nothing to fear. ' The gentleman,' said he, ' is 
trying to act a part for which he is by no means qualified : if he had all the incli- 
nation in the world, it is not in his power to be mad ; his spirits are too flat to be 
kindled into phrenzy.' ''Tis not bad p-p-puff, how-owever, observed a person 
in a tarnished laced coat: 'aff-ffected m-raadness w-ill p-pass for w-wit w-with 
nine-nineteen out of t-twenty.' ' And affected stuttering for humor,' replied our land- 
lord ; ' though, God knows ! there is no affinity between them.' It seems this wag, 
after having made some abortive attempts in plain speaking, had recourse to this 
defect, by means of which he frequently extorted the laugh of the company, without 
the least expense of genius ; and that imperfection, which he had at first counter- 
feited, was now become so habitual, that he could not lay it aside. 

" A certain winking genius, who wore yellow gloves at dinner, had, on his first 

introduction, taken such offence at S , because he looked and talked, and Kte and 

drank, like any other man, that he spoke contemptuously of his understanding ever 
after, and never would repeat his visit, until he had exhibited the following proof of 
his caprice. Wat Wyvil, the poet, having made some unsuccessful advances towards 
an intimacy with S , at last gave him to understand, by a third person, that he 



^ o8 ENGLISH HUMOR IS TS. 

We have before us, and painted by his own hand, Tobias 
Smollett, the manly, kindly, honest, and irascible ; worn and 
battered, but still brave and full of heart, after a long struggle 

had written a poem in his praise, and a satire against his person : that if he would 
admit him to his house, the first should be immediately sent to press ; but that if he 

persisted in declining his friendship, he would publish the satire without delay. S 

replied, that he looked upon Wyvil's penegyric as, in effect, a specimen of infamy, 
and would resent it accordingly with a good cudgel ; but if he published the satire he 
might deserve his compassion, and had nothing to fear from his revenge. Wyvil 

having considered the alternative, resolved to mortify S by printing the 

panegyric, for which he received a sound drubbing. Then he swore the peace against 
the aggressor, who, in order to avoid a prosecution at law, admitted him to his good 

graces. It was the singularity in S 's conduct on this occasion, that reconciled 

him to the yellow-gloved philosopher, who owned he had some genius ; and from 
that period cultivated his acquaintance. 

" Curious to know upon what subjects the several talents of my fellow-guests 
were- employed, I applied to my communicative friend Dick Ivy, who gave me to 
understand that most of them were, or had been, understrappers, or journeymen, to 
more creditable authors, for whom they translated, collated, and compiled, in the 
business of bookmaking ; and that all of them had, at different times, labored in the 
service of our landlord, though they had now set up for themselves in various depart- 
ments of literature. Not only their talents, but also their nations and dialects, were 
so various, that our conversation resembled the confusion of tongues at Babel. We 
had the Irish brogue, the Scotch accent, and foreign idiom, twanged off by the most 
discordant vociferation ; for as tliey all spoke together, no man had any chance to be 
heard, unless he could bawl louder than his fellows. It must be owned, however, 
there was nothing pedantic in their discourse ; they carefully avoided all learned 
disquisitions, and endeavored to be facetious : nor did their endeavors always mis- 
carry ; some droll repartee passed, and much laughter was excited ; and if any 
individual lost his temper so far as to transgress the bounds of decorum, he was 
effectually checked by the master of the feast, who exerted a sort of paternal 
authority over this irritable tribe. 

" The most learned philosopher of the whole collection, who had been expelled 
the university for atheism, has made great progress in a refutation of Lord Boling- 
broke's metaphysical works, which is said to be equally ingenious and orthodox: but, 
in the meantime, he has been presented to the grand jury as a public nuisance for 
having blaspherned in an alehouse on the Lord's-day. The Scotchman gives lectures 
on the pronunciation of the English language, which he is now publishing by sub- 
scription. 

" The Irishman is a political writer, and goes by the name of My Lord Potatoe. 
He wrote a pamphlet in vindication of a Minister, hoping his zeal would be rewarded 
with some place or pension ; but finding himself neglected in that quarter, he whis- 
pered about that the pamphlet was written by the Minister himself, and he published 
an answer to his ov,'n production. In this he addressed the author under the title of 

* your lordship,' with such solemnity, that the public swallowed the deceit, and 
bought up the whole impression. The wise politicians of the metropolis declared 
they were both masterly performances, and chuckled over the flimsy reveries of an 
ignorant garretteer, as the profound speculations of a veteran statesman, acquainted 
with all the secrets of the cabinet. The imposture was detected in the sequel, and 
our Hibernian pamphleteer retains no part of his assumed importance but the 
bare title of 'my lord,' and the upper part of the table at the potatoe-ordinary in Shoe 
Lane. 

" Opposite to me sat a Piedmontese, who had obliged the public with a humorous 
satire, entitled ' The Balance of the English Poets ; ' a performance which evinced 
the great modesty and taste of the author, and, in particular, his intimacy with the 
elegancies of the English language. The sage, wlio labored under the iypo<|)o^ta, or, 

* horror of green fields,' had just finished a treatise on practical agriculture, though, 
in fact, he had never seen corn growing in his life, and was so ignorant of grain, that 



HOGARTH. SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 509 

against a hard fortune. His brain had been busied with a 
hundred different schemes ; he had been reviewer and historian, 
critic, medical writer, poet, pamphleteer. He had fought end- 
less literary battles ; and braved and wielded for years the 
cudgels of controversy. It was a hard and savage fight in those 
days, and a niggard pay. He was oppressed by illness, age, 
narrow fortune ; but his spirit was still resolute, and his cour- 
age steady ; the battle over, he could do justice to the enemy 
with whom he had been so fiercely engaged, and give a not un- 
friendly grasp to the hand that had mauled him. He is like 
one of those Scotch cadets, of whom history gives us so many 
examples, and whom, with a national fidelity, the great Scotch 
novelist has painted so charmingly. Of gentle birth * and nar- 

our entertainer, in the face of the whole company, made him own that a plate of 
hominy was the best rice-pudding he had ever eat. 

" The stutterer had almost finished his travels through Europe and part of Asia, 
without ever budging beyond the liberties of the King's Bench, except in term-time 
with a tipstaff for his companion : and as for little Tim Cropdale, the most facetious 
member of the whole society, he had happily wound up the catastrophe of a virgin 
tragedy, from the exhibition of which he promised himself a large fund of profit and 
reputation. Tim had made shift to live many years by writing novels, at the rate of 
five pounds a volume ; but that branch of business is now engrossed by female 
authors, who publish merely for the propagation of virtue, with so much ease, and 
spirit, and delicacy, and knowledge of the human heart, and all in the serene tran- 
quillity of high life, that the reader is not only enchanted by their genius, but 
reformed by their morality. 

" After dinner, we adjourned into the garden, where I observed Mr. S give a 

short separate audience to every individual in a small remote filbert-walk, from 
whence most of them dropped off one after another, without further ceremony.'' 

Smollett's house was in Lawrence Lane, Chelsea, and is now destroyed. See 
Handbook of London, p. 115. 

" The person of Smollett was eminently handsome, his features prepossessing, 
and, by the joint testimony of all his surviving friends, his conversation, in the 
highest degree, instructive and amusing. Of his disposition, those who have read his 
works (and who has not ?) may form a very accurate estimate ; for in each of them 
he has presented, and sometimes, under various points of view, the leading features 
of his own character without disguising the most unfavorable of them. ♦ * * * 
When unseduced by his satirical propensities, he was kind, generous, and humane to 
others ; bold, upright, and independent in his own character ; stooped to no patron, 
sued for no favor, but honestly and honorably maintained himself' on his literary 
labors. * * * * He was a doating father, and an affectionate husband ; and 
the warm zeal with which his memory was cherished by his surviving friends showed 
clearly the reliance which they placed upon his regard."— Sir Walter Scott. 

* Smollett of Bonhill, in Dumbartonshire. Arms, azure, a bend, or, between a 
lion rampant, ppr., holding in his paw a banner, argent, and a bugle-horn, also ppr. 
Crest, an oak-tree, ppr., Motto Viresco. 

Smollett's father, Archibald, was the fourth son of Sir James Smollett of Bonhill, 
a Scotch Judge and Member of Parliament, and one of the commissioners for framing 
the Union with England. Archibald married, without the old gentleman's consent, 
and died early, leaving his children dependent on their grandfather. Tobias, the 
second son, was born in 1721, in the old house of Dalquharn in the valley of Leven ; 
and all his life loved and admired that valley and Loch Lomond beyond all the valleys 
and lakes in Europe. He learned the " rudiments " at Dumbarton Grammar School, 
and studied at Glasgow. 

But when he was only ten, his grandfather died, and left him without provision 



5 1 o ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

row means, going out from his northern home to win his for- 
tune in the world, and to fight his way, armed with courage, 
hunger, and keen wits. His crest is a shattered oak-tree, with 
green leaves yet springing from it. On his ancient coat-of-arms 
there is a lion and a horn ; this shield of his was battered and 
dinted in a hundred fights and brawls,* through which the 

(figuring as the old judge in " Roderick Random '' in consequence, according to Sir 
Walter). Tobias, armed with the " Regicide, a Tragedy," — a provision precisely 
similar to that with which Dr. Johnson had started, just before — came up to London. 
The "'Regicide" came to no good, though at first patronized by Lord Lyttelton 
(" one of those little fellows who are sometimes called great men," Smollett says) ; 
and Smollett embarked as " surgeon's mate " on board a line-of -battle ship, and 
served in the Carthagena expedition, in 1741. He left the service in the West 
Indies, and after residing some time in Jamaica, returned to England in 1746. 

He was now unsuccessful as a physician, to begin with ; published the satires, 
" Advice " and " Reproof," without any luck ; and (1747) married the " beautiful and 
accomplished Miss Lascelles.'' 

In 1 748 he brought out his " Roderick Random," which at once made a ** hit." 
The subsequent events of his life may be presented, chronologically, in a bird's-eye 
view : — 

1750. Made a tour to Paris, where he chiefly wrote " Peregrine Pickle." 

1751. Published " Peregrine Pickle." 

1753. Published " Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom." 

1755. Published version of " Don Quixote." 

^756. Began the "Critical Review." 

V758. Published his " History of England." 

1 763-1 766. Travelling in France and Italy ; published his "Travels.** 

1769. Published " Adventures of an Atom." • 

1770. Set out for Italy ; died at Leghorn 21st of October, 1 771, in the fifty-first year 
of his age. 

* A good specimen of the old " slashing " style of writing is presented by the 
paragraph on Admiral Knowles, which subjected Smollett to prosecution and im- 
prisonment. The admiral's defence on the occasion of the failure of the Rochfort 
expedition came to be examined before the tribunal of the " Critical Review." 

"He is,'' said our author, "an admiral without conduct, an engineer without 
knowledge, an officer without resolution, and a man without veracity ! " 

Three months' imprisonment in the King's Bench avenged this stinging paragraph. 

But the "Critical" was to Smollett a perpetual fountain of "hot water." 
Among less important controversies may be mentioned that with Grainger, the 
translator of " Tibullus." Grainger replied in a pamphlet ; and in the next number 
of the " Review " we find him threatened with " castigation," as an "owl that has 
broken from his mew ! " 

In Dr. Moore's biography of him is a pleasant anecdote. After publishing the 
" Don Quixote," he returned to Scotland to pay a visit to his mother : — 

" On Smollett's arrival he was mtroduced to his mother with the connivance of 
Mrs. Telfer (her daughter), as a gentleman from the West Indies, who was inti- 
mately acquainted with her son. The better to support his assumed character, he 
endeavored to preserve a serious countenance, approaching to a frown ; but while 
his mother's eyes were riveted on his countenance, he could not refrain from smiling : 
she immediately sprung from her chair, and throwing her arms round his neck, 
exclaimed, * Ah, my son ! my son ! I have found you at last ! ' 

" She afterwards told him, that if he had kept his austere looks and continued to 
gloom, he might have escaped detection some time longer, but * your old roguish 
smile,' added she, ' betrayed you at once.' " 

" Shortly after the pubrication of ' The Adventures of an Atom,' disease again 
attacked Smollett with redoubled violence. Attempts being vainly made to obtain for 
him the office of Consul in some pai' ' ■ the Mediterranean, he was compelled to seek 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT. AND FIELDING 



5*^ 



stout Scotchman bore it courageously. You see somehow that 
he is a gentleman, through all his battling and struggling, his 
poverty, his hard-fought successes, and his defeats. His novels 
are recollections of his own adventures ; his characters drawn, as 
I should think, from personages with whom he became acquaint- 
ed in his own career of life. Strange companions he must have 
had ; queer acquaintances he made in the Glasgow College— 
in the country apothecary's shop ; in the gun-room of the man- 
of-war where he served as surgeon ; and in the hard life on 
shore, where the sturdy adventurer struggled for fortune. He 
did not invent much, as I fancy, but had the keenest percep- 
tive faculty, and described what he saw with wonderful relish 
and delightful broad humor. I think Uncle Bowling, in " Rod- 
erick Random," is as good a character as Squire Western 
himself : and Mr. Morgan, the Welsh apothecary, is as pleas- 
ant as Dr. Caius. What man who has made his inestimable 
acquaintance — what novel-reader who loves Don Quixote and 
Major Dalgetty — will refuse his most cordial acknowledgments 
to the admirable Lieutenant Lismahago. The novel of " Hum- 
phrey Clinker " is, I do think, the most laughable story that 
has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing be- 
gan. Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble must keep Eng- 
lishmen on the grin for ages yet to come ; and in their letters 
and the story of their loves there is a perpetual fount of spark- 
ling laughter, as inexhaustible as Bladud's well. 

Fielding, too, has described, though with a greater hand, 
the characters and scenes which he knew and saw. He had 
more than ordinary opportunities for becoming acquainted with 
life. His family and education, first — his fortunes and mis- 
fortunes afterwards, brought him into the society of every rank 
and condition of man. He is himself the hero of his books : 
he is wild Tom Jones, he is wild Captain Booth \ less wild, I 
am glad to think, than his predecessor : at least heartily con- 
scious of demerit, and anxious to amend. 

When Fielding first came upon the town in 1727, the recol- 
lection of the great wits was still fresh in the coffee-houses and 

a warmer climate, without better means of provision than his own precarious finances 
could afford. The kindness of his distinguished friend and countryman, Dr. Arm- 
strong (then abroad), procured for Dr. and Mrs. Smollett a house at Monte Nero, a 
village situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea, in the neighborhood 
of Leghorn, a romantic and salutary abode, where he prepared for the press, the last, 
and like music ' sweetest in the close,' the most pleasing of his compositions, ' The 
Expedition of Humphrey Clinker.' This delightful work was published in 1771."-^ 
Sir Walter Scott. 



-12 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. \ 

assemblies, and the judges there declared that young Harrji 
Fielding had more spirits and wit than Congreve or any of his'j 
brilliant successors. His figure was tall and stalwart ; his face f 
handsome, manly, and noble-looking ; to the very last days olj-j 
his life he retained a grandeur of air, and although worn down 
by disease, his aspect and presence imposed respect upon the 
people round about him. . 

A dispute took place between Mr. Fielding and the cap-j 
tain * of the ship in which he was making his last voyage, and i 
Fielding relates how the man finally went down on his knees i 
and begged his passenger's pardon. He was living up to the! 
last days of his life, and his spirit never gave in. His vital 
power must have been immensely strong. Lady Mary Wortle), 
Montagu f prettily characterizes Fielding a-nd this capacity foi 
happiness which he possessed, in a little notice of his death, 
when she compares him to Steele, who was as improvident and 
as happy as he was, and says that both should have gone or 
living for ever. One can fancy the eagerness and gusto with 
which a man of Fielding's frame, with his vast health and ro- 
bust appetite, his ardent spirits, his joyful humor, and his keer 
and hearty relish for life, must have seized and drunk that cup^ 
of pleasure which the town offered to him. Can any of mj; 
hearers remember the youthful feats of a college breakfast- 

* The dispute with the captain arose from the wish of that functionary to intrude 
on his right to his cabin, for which he had paid thirty pounds. After recounting the 
circumstances of the apology, he characteristically adds : — 

" And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises, I dc 
utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. Neither did the greatness of my mind 
dictate, nor the force of my Christianity exact this forgiveness. To speak truth, ] 
forgave him from a motive which would make men much more forgiving, if they wert 
much wiser than they are, because it was convenient for me so to do." 

t Lady Mary was his second-cousin — their respective grandfathers being sons oi 
George Fielding, Earl of Desmond, son of William, Earl of Denbigh. 

In a letter dated just a week before his death, she says — 

" H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and hi^ first wife in the characters 
of Mr. and Mrs. Booth ^ some compliments to his own figure excepted ; and I atr 
persuaded, several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact. I wondei | 
he does not perceive Tom Jones and Mr. Booth are sorry scoundrels. * * * * 
Fielding has really a fund of true humor, and was to be pitied at his first entrance 
into the world, having no choice, as he said himself, but to be a hackney writer or a 
hackney coachman. His genius deserved a better fate ; but I cannot help blaming' 
that continued indiscretion, to give it the softest name, that has run through his life, 
and I am afraid still remains. * * * * Since I was born no original has appeared 
excepting Congreve, and Fielding, who would, I believe, have approached nearer to 
his excellences, if not forced by his necessities to publish without correction, and; 
throw many productions into the world he would have thrown into the fire, if meat; 
could have been got without money, or money without scribbling. * * * * I 
am sorry not to see any more of Peregrine Pickle's performances ; I wish you would i 
tell me his \).2Xi\tP— Letters and Works (Lord Wharncliffe's Ed.), vol. iii. pp ^ 
93. 94- 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 513 

le meats devoured and the cups quaffed in that Homeric feast ? 
can call to mind some of the heroes of those youthful ban- 
uets, and fancy young Fielding from Leyden rushing upon the 
iast, with his great laugh and immense healthy young appe- 
te, eager and vigorous to enjoy. The young man's wit and 
lanners made him friends everywhere : he lived with the grand 
lan's society of those days ; he was courted by peers and 
len of wealth and fashion. As he had a paternal allowance 
:om his father, General Fielding, which, to use Henry's own 
hrase, any man might pay who would ; as he liked good wine, 
ood clothes, and good compan}^, which are all expensive arli- 
les to purchase, Harry Fielding began to run into debt, and 
orrow money in that easy manner in which Captain Booth 
orrows money in the novel : was in nowise particular in ac- 
epting a few pieces from the purses of his rich friends, and 
ore down upon more than one of them, as Walpole tells us only 
DO truly, for a dinner or a guinea. To supply himself with the 
itter he began to write theatrical pieces, having already, no 
oubt, a considerable acquaintance amongst the Oldfields and 
'.racegirdles behind the scenes. He laughed at these pieces 
nd scorned them. When the audience upon one occasion be- 
an to hiss a scene which he was too lazy to correct, and regard- 
ig which, when Garrick remonstrated with him, he said that 
he public was too stupid to find out the badness of his work : 
^hen the audience began to hiss. Fielding said, with charac- 
^ristic coolness — " They have found it out, have they ? " He 
id not prepare his novels in this way, and with a very diiferent 
are and interest laid the foundations and built up the edifices 
if his future fame. 

Time and shower have very little damaged those. The 
ishioJi and ornaments are, perhaps, of the architecture of 
hat age ; but the buildings remain strong and lofty, and of 
dmirable proportions— ^masterpieces of genius and monuments 
f workmanlike skill. 

I cannot offer or hope to make a hero of Harry Fielding. 
Vhy hide his faults ? Why conceal his weaknesses in a cloud 
f periphrases ? Why not show him, like him as he is, not 
pbed in a marble toga, and draped and polished in an heroic 
Ittitude, but with inked ruffles, and claret-stains on his tar- 
dshed laced coat, and on his manly face the marks of good- 
ellowship, of illness, -of kindness, of care, and wine. Stained 
tS you see him, and worn by care and dissipation, that man 
etains some of the most precious ^nd splendid human quali- 
ies and endowments. He has ar admirable natural love of 



H 1 4 ENGLISH HUMOR IS TS. 

truth, the keenest'instinctive antipathy to hypocrisy, the hap- 
piest satirical gift of laughing it to scorn. His wit is wonder- 
fully wise and detective ; it flashes upon a rogue and lightens 
up a rascal like a policeman's lantern. He is one of the man- 
liest and kindliest of human beings : in the midst of all his 
imperfecUons, he respects female innocence and infantine ten- 
derness, as you would suppose such a great-hearted, coura- 
geous soul would respect and care for them. He could not be 
so brave, generous, truth-telling as he is, were he not infinitel)/ 
merciful, pitiful, and tender. He will give any man his purse 
— he can't help kindness and profusion. He may have low 
tastes, but not a mean mind ; he admires with all his heart 
good and virtuous men, stoops to no flatter}^ bears no rancorj 
disdains all disloyal arts, does his public duty uprightly, is 
fondly loved by his family, and dies at his work.* 

If' that theory be — and I have no doubt it is — the right and 
safe one, that human nature is always pleased with the spec-, 
tacle of innocence rescued by fidelity, purity, and courage ; ] 
suppose that of the heroes of Fielding's three novels, we should 
like honest Joseph Andrews the best, and Captain Booth the 
second, and Tom Jones the third.! 

Joseph Andrews, though he wears Lady Booby's cast-oft 
livery, is, I think, to the full as polite as Tom Jones in hisi 
fustian-suit, or Captain Booth in regimentals. He has, like, 
those heroes, large calves, broad shoulders, high courage, and 
a handsome face. The accounts of Joseph's bravery and good 
qualities ; his voice, too musical to halloo to the dogs ; hisi 
bravery in riding races for the gentlemen of the country, and 
his constancy in refusing bribes and temptation, have some- 
thing affecting in their ?iaiveie and freshness, and prepossess 
one in favor of that young hero. The rustic bloom of Fanny, 
and the delightful simplicity of Parson Adams, are described 
with a friendliness which wins the reatler of their story ; we 
part from them with more regret than from Booth and Jones. 

Fielding, no doubt, began to write this novel in ridicule of 
" Pamela," for which work one can understand the hearty con- 

* He sailed for Lisbon, from Gravesend, on Sunday morning, June 30th, 1754^ 
and began " The Journal of a Voyage " during the passage. He died at Lisbon, 
in the beginning of October of the same year. He lies buried there, in the 
English Protestant churchyard, near the Estrella Church, with this inscription over 
him : — 

" HENRICUS FIELDING. 

LUGEf BRITANNIA GREMIO NON DATUM 

FOVERE NATUM." 

t Fielding himself is said by Dr. Warton to have preferred " Joseph Andrew^j* 
to his other writings. 



i 



I 






HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. r^c 



tempt and antipathy which such an athletic and boisterous 
genius as Fielding's must have entertained. He couldn't do 
otherwise than laugh at the puny cockney bookseller, pouring 
out endless volumes of sentimental twaddle, and hold him up 
to scorn as a mollycoddle and a milksop. His genius had been 
nursed on sack-posset, and not on dishes of tea. His muse 
had sung the loudest in tavern choruses, had seen the daylight 
streaming in over thousands of emptied bowls and reeled home 
to chambers on the shoulders of the watchman. Richardson's 
goddess was attended by old maids and dowagers, and fed on 
muffins and bohea. " Milksop ! " roars Harry Fielding, clat- 
tering at the timid shop-shutters. " Wretch ! Monster ! 
Mohock ! " shrieks the sentimental author of " Pamela ; " * 
and all the ladies of his court cackle out an affrighted chorus. 
Fielding proposes to write a book in ridicule of the author, 
whom he dislikes and utterly scorned and laughed at ; but he 
is himself of so generous, jovial, and kindly a turn that he be- 
gins to like the characters which he invents, can't help making 
them manly and pleasant as well as ridiculous, and before he 
has done with them all, loves them heartily every one. 

Richardson's sickening antipathy for Harry Fielding is 
quite as natural as the other's laughter and contempt at the 
sentimentalist. I have not learned that these likings and dis- 
liking^ have ceased in the present day : and every author must 
lay his account not only to misrepresentation, but to honest 
enmity among critics, and to being hated and abused for good 
as well as for bad reasons. Richardson disliked Fielding's 
works quite honestly : Walpole quite honestly spoke of them 
as vulgar and stupid. Their squeamish stomachs sickened at 
the rough fare and the rough guests assembled at Fielding's 
jolly revel. Indeed the cloth might have been cleaner : and 
the dinner and the company were scarce such as suited a 
dandy. The kind and wise old Johnson would not sit down 
with hi.m.f But a greater scholar than Johnson could afford 

* " Richardson," says worthy Mrs. Barbauld, in her Memoir of him, prefixed to 
his Correspondence, "was exceedingly hurt at this (' Joseph Andrews '), the more so 
as they had been on good terms, and he was very intimate with Fielding's two 
sisters. He never appears cordially to have forgiven it (perhaps it was not in human 
nature he should), and he always speaks in his letters with a great deal of asperity 
of ' Tom Jones,' more indeed than was quite graceful in a rival author. No doubt 
he himself thought his indignation was sorely excited by the loose morality of the 
work and of its author, but he could tolerate Gibber," 

t It must always be borne in mind, that besides that the Doctor couldn't be 
expected to like Fielding's wild life (to say nothing of the fact that they were of 
opposite sides in politics), Richardson was one of his earliest and kindest 
friends. Yet Johnson too (as Boswell tells us) read " Amelia " through without 
stopping. 



^i6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

to admire that astonishing genius of Harry Fielding : and w© j 
all know the lofty panegyric which Gibbon wrote of him, and ■ 
which remains a towering monument to the great novelist's • 
memory. " Our immortal Fielding," Gibbon writes, " was of : 
the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their ' 
origin from the Counts of Hapsburgh. The successors of ' 
Charles V, may disdain their brethren of England : but the \ 
romance of ' Tom Jones,' that exquisite picture of humor and ■ 
manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the Im- : 
perial Eagle of Austria." i 

There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great judge. ■ 
To have your name mentioned by Gibbon, is like having it , 
written on the dome of St. Peter's. Pilgrims from all the j 
world admire and behold it. i 

As a picture of manners, the novel of " Tom Jones " is indeed i 
exquisite : as a work of construction quite a wonder : the by- ! 
play of wisdom ; the power of observation ; the multiplied j 
felicitous turns and thoughts ; the varied character of the great ■■ 
Comic Epic : keep the reader in a perpetual admiration and curi- \ 
osity.* But against Mr. Thomas Jones himself we have a right ; 
to put in a protest, and quarrel with the esteem the author : 
evidently has for that character. Charles Lamb says finely of ; 
Jones, that a single hearty laugh from him " clears the air " — ' 
but then it is in a certain state of the atmosphere. It might 
clear the air when such personages as Blifil or Lady Beltaston -. 
poison it. But I fear very much that (except until the very ' 
last scene of the story), when Mr. Jones enters Sophia's draw- \ 
ing-room, the pure air there is rather tainted with ' the young ; 
gentleman's tobacco-pipe and punch. I can't say that I think i 
Mr. Jones a virtuous character ; I can't say but that I think , 
Fielding's evident liking and admiration for Mr. Jones shows i 
that the great humorist's moral sense was blunted by his life, ' 

* " Manners change from generation to generation, and with manners morals i 

appear to change — actually change with some, but appear to change with all but the 1 

abandoned. A young man of the present day who should act as Tom Jones is sup- . 

posed to act at Upton, with Lady Bellaston, &c., would not be a Tom Jones ; and a ' 

Tom Jones of the present day, without perhaps being in the ground a better man, ; 

would have perished rather than submit to be kept by a harridan of fortune. There- ■ 

fore, this novel is, and indeed pretends to be, no example of conduct. But, notwith- i 

standing all this, I do loathe the cant that can recommend * Pamela ' and ' Clarissa | 

Harlowe ' as strictly moral, although they poison the imagination of the young with j 

continued doses of tinct. lyttcB, while Tom Jones is prohibited as loose. I do not '• 

speak of young women ; but a young man whose heart or feelings can be injured, or ' 

even his passions excited by this novel, is already thoroughly corrupt. There is a \ 

cheerful, sunshiny, breezy spirit, that prevails everywhere, strongly contrasted with ■ 

the close, hot, day-dreamy continuity of Richardson.'' — Coleridge : Literary Re' ; 
mains, vol. ii. p. 374. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 517 

and that here, in Art and Ethics, there is a great error. If it is 
right to ha\'e a hero whom we may admire, let us at least take 
care that he is admirable : if, as is the plan of some authors (a 
plan decidedly against their interests, be it said), it is pro- 
pounded that there exists in life no such being, and therefore 
that in novels, the picture of life, there should appear no such 
character; then Mr. Thomas Jones becomes an admissible 
person, and we examine his defects and good qualities, as we 
do those of Parson Thwackum, or Miss Seagrim. But a hero 
with a flawed reputation ; a hero spunging for a guinea ; a hero 
who can't pay his landlady, and is obliged to let his honor 
out to hire, is absurd, and his claim to heroic rank untenable. 
I protest against Mr. Thomas Jones holding such rank at all. I 
protest even against his being considered a more than ordinary 
young fellow, ruddy-cheeked, broad-shouldered, and fond of 
wine and pleasure. He would not rob a diurch, but that is all ; 
and a pretty long argument may be debated, as to which 
of these old types, the spendthrift, the hypocrite, Jones and 
Blifil, Charles and Joseph Surface, — is the worst member of 
society and the most deserving of censure. The prodigal 
Captain Booth is a better man than his predecessor Mr. Jones, 
in so far as he thinks much more humbly of himself than Jones 
did : goes down on his knees, and owns his weaknesses, and 
cries out, " Not for my sake, but for the sake of my pure and 
sweet and beautiful wife Amelia, I pray you, O critical reader, 
to forgive me." That stern moralist regards him from the 
bench (the judge's practice out of court is not here the ques- 
tion), and says, " Captain Booth, it is perfectly true that your 
life has been disreputable, and that on many occasions you 
have shown yourself to be no better than a scamp — you have 
been tippling at the tavern, when the kindest and sweetest lady 
in the world has cooked your little supper of boiled mutton and 
awaited you all the night ; you have spoilt the little dish of 
boiled mutton thereby, and caused pangs and pains to Amelia's 
tender heart.* You have got into debt without the means of 

* " Nor was she (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) a stranger to that beloved first 
wife, whose picture he drew in his ' Ameha,' when, as she said, even the glowing 
language he knew how to employ, did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities 
of the original, or to her beauty, although this had suffered a little from the accident 
related in the novel— a frightful overturn, which destroyed the gristle of her nose. 
He loved her passionately, and she returned his affection * * * 

" His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that, after the death of this 
charming woman, he married her maid. And yet the act was not so discreditable to 
his character as it may sound. The maid had few personal charms, but was an 
excellent creature, devotedly attaclied to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for 
her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he founci 



^ I g ENGLISH HUMOR IS TS. 

paying it. You have gambled the money with which you ought 
to have paid your rent. You have spent in drink or in worse 
amusements the sums which your poor wife has raised upon 
her little home treasures, her own ornaments, and the toys of 
her children. But, you rascal ! you own humbly that you are 
no better than you should be ; you never for one moment pre- 
tend that you are anything but a miserable weak-minded rogue. 
You do in your heart adore that angelic woman, your wife, 
and for her sake, sirrah, you shall have your discharge. 
Lucky for you and for others like you, that in spite of your 
failings and imperfections, pure hearts pity and love you. For 
your* wife's sake you are permitted to go hence without a re- 
mand ; and I beg you, by the way, to carry to that angelical 
lady the expression of the cordial respect and admiration of 
this court." Amelia pleads for her husband. Will Booth : 
Amelia pleads for her reckless kindly old father, Harry Field- 
ing. To have invented that character, is not only a triumph of 
art, but it is a good action. They say it was in his own home 
that Fielding knew her and loved her ; and from his own wife 
that he drew the most charming character in English fiction. 
Fiction ! why fiction ? why not history ? I know Amelia just as 
well as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I believe in Colonel Bath 
almost as much as in Colonel Gardiner or the Duke of Cumber- 
land. I admire the author of ''Amelia," and thank the kind 
master who introduced me to that sweet and delightful com- 
panion and friend. " Amelia " perhaps is not a better story 
than " Tom Jones," but it has the better ethics ; the prodigal 
repents at least, before forgiveness, — whereas that odious broad- 
backed Mr. Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an interval 
of remorse for his manifold errors and short-comings ; and is 
not half punished enough before the great prize of fortune and 
love falls to his share. I am angry with Jones. Too much of 
the plum-cake and rewards of life fall to that boisterous, swag- 
gering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without 

no relief but from weeping along with her ; nor solace when a degree calmer, but in 
talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his habitual confi- 
dential associate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give his 
children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and 
nurse. At least, this was what he told his friends ; and it is certain that her conduct 
as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion." — Letters and Works 
of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Edited h^ Lord Wharncliffe. Introduc- 
tory Anecdotes, vol. i. pp. So, 8i. 

Fielding's first wife was Miss Craddock, a young lady from Salisbury, with a 
fortune of 1,500/., whom he married in 1736. About the same time he succeeded, 
himself, to an estate of 200/. per annum, and on the joint amount he lived for some 
time as a splendid country gentleman in Dorsetshire. Three years brought him to 
the end of his fortune ; when he returned to London and became a student of law. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING. 



519 



a proper sense of decorum ; the fond, foolish, palpitatng Httle 
creature ! — " Indeed, Mr. Jones," she says, — " it rests with you 
to appoint the day." I suppose Sophia is drawn from life as 
well as Amelia ; and many a young fellow, no better than Mr. 
Thomas Jones, has carried by a coupde main the heart of many 
a kind girl who is a great deal too good for him. 

What a wonderful art ! What an admirable gift of nature 
was it by which the author of these tales was endowed, and 
which enabled him to fix our interest, to waken our sympathy, 
to seize upon our credulity, so that we believe in his people 
' — speculate gravely upon their faults or their excellences, 
prefer this one or that, deplore Jones's fondness for drink 
and play. Booth's fondness for play and drink, and the un- 
fortunate position of the wives of both gentlemen — love 
and admire those ladies with all our hearts, and talk about 
them as faithfully as if we had breakfasted with them this 
morning in their actual drawing-rooms or should meet them 
this afternoon in the Park ! What a genius I what a vigor ! 
what a bright-eyed intelligence and observation ! what a whole- 
some hatred for meanness and knavery ! what a vast sympathy ! 
what a cheerfulness ! what a manly relish of life ! what a love of 
human kind ! what a poet is here .'—watching, meditating, brood- 
ing, creating ! What multitudes of truths has that man left be- 
hind him ! What generations he has taught to laugh wisely and 
fairly ! What scholars he has formed and accustomed to the 
exercise of thoughtful humor and the manly play of wit ! What 
a courage he had ! What a dauntless and constant cheerful- 
ness of intellect, that burned bright and steady through all the 
storms of his life, and never deserted its last wreck ! It is 
wonderful to think of the pains and misery which the man 
suffered ; the pressure of want, illness, remorse which he en- 
dured ; and that the writer was neither malignant nor melan- 
choly, his view of truth never warped, and his generous hu- 
man kindness never surrendered.* 

* In the Gentleman'' s Magazine for 1786, an anecdote is related of Harry 
Fielding, " in whom," says the correspondent, "good-nature and philanthropy in 
their extreme degree were known to be the prominent features." It seems that 
" some parochial taxes " for his house in Beaufort Buildings had long been demanded 
by the collector. " At last, Harry went off to Johnson, and obtained by a process of 
literary mortgage the needful sum. He was returning with it, when he met an old 
college chum whom he had not seen for many years. He asked the chum to dinner 
with him at a neighboring tavern ; and learning that he was in difficulties, emptied 
the contents of his pocket into his. On returning home he was informed that the 
collector had been twice for the money. ' Friendship has called for the money and 
had it,' said Fielding ; 'let the collector call again.' '' 

It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, his 



520 



1 

\ 

ENGLISH HUMORISTS. \ 



In the quarrel mentioned before, which happened on Field- j 

ing's last voyage to Lisbon, and when the stout captain of the '\ 

ship fell down on his knees and asked the sick man's pardon — j 

*' I did not suffer," Fielding says, in his hearty, manly way, his \ 

kinsman, and the conversation turning upon their relationship, the Earl asked him 1 

how it was that he spelled his name " Fielding," and not " Feilding," like the head | 

of the house ? " I cannot tell, my lord," said he, " except it be that my branch of the ; 

family were the first that knew how to spell.'' I 

In 1748, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster and Middlesex, an j 
office then paid by fees, and very laborious, without being particularly reputable. It ,] 

may be seen from his own words, in the Introduction to the " Voyage," what kind of ; 

work devolved upon him, and in what a state he was, during these last years ; and ! 

still more clearly, how he comported himself through all. j 

" Whilst I was preparing for my journey, and when I was almost fatigued to death, j 

with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed ; 

within the space of a week, by different gangs of street-robbers, I received a message \ 

from his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the King's messenger, to ' 

attend his Grace the next morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon some business of ■ 

importance ; but I excused myself from complying with the message, as, besides . 

being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues I had lately undergone, added to my ■ 
distemper. 

" His Grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington the very next morning, with another ; 

summons; with which, though in the utmost distress, I immediately complied; but j 

the Duke happening, imfortunately for me, to be then particularly engaged, after I j 

had waited some time, sent a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan i 

which could be invented for these murders and robberies, which were every day com- j 

mitted in the streets ; upon which I promised to transmit my opinion m writing to ' 

his Grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, intended to lay it before the Privy ] 
Council. 

" Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set myself down to 
work, and in about four days sent the Duke as regular a plan as I could form, with 
all the reasons and arguments I could bring to support it, drawn out on several sheets 
of paper ; and soon received a message from the Duke, by Mr. Carrington, acquainting 
me that my plan was highly approved of, and that all the terms of it would be com- 
plied with. I 

" The principal and most material of these terms was the immediately depositing j 

600/ in my hands ; at which small charge I undertook to demolish the then reigning \ 

gangs, and to put the civil policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be i 

able for the future to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time ] 

formidable to the public. ' 

" I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the repeated advice ■ 

of my physical acquaintances and the ardent desire of my warmest friends, though • 

my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice ; in which case the Bath waters are '■■ 

generally reputed to be almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire to ■ 
demolish this gang of villains and cut-throats. * * * * 

"After some weeks the money was paid at the Treasury, and within a few days i 

after 200/. of it had come into my hands, the whole gang of cut-throats was entirely \ 
dispersed. ****'' 

Further on, he says — ; 

" I will confess that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a \ 

gloomy aspect ; for I had not plundered the public or the poor of those sums which j 

men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been pleased | 

to suspect me of taking; on the contniry, by composing, instead of inflaming, the ■ 

quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush wlien I say hath not been universally I 

practised), and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly i 

would not have had another left, I had reduced an income of about 500/. a year of the j 

dirtiest money upon earthy to little more than 300/,, a considerable portion of which j 

remained with my clerk." | 



I 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 52 1 



eyes lighting up as it were with their old fire — " I did not suffer 
a brave man and an old man to remain a moment in that pos 
ture, but immediately forgave him." Indeed, I think, with his 
noble spirit and unconquerable generosity. Fielding reminds 
one of those brave men of whom one reads in stories of English 
shipwrecks and disasters — of the officer on the African shore, 
when disease has destroyed the crew, and he himself is seized 
by fever, who throws the lead with a death-stricken hand, takes 
the soundings, carries the ship out of the river or off the dan- 
gerous coast, and dies in the manly endeavor — of the wounded 
captain, when the vessel founders, who never loses his heart, 
who eyes the danger steadily, and has a cheery word for all, 
until the inevitable fate overwhelms him, and the gallant ship 
goes down. Such a brave and gentle heart, such an intrepid 
and courageous spirit, I love to recognize in the manly, the 
English Harry Fielding. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH, 

Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second son of a 
numerous race, descendants of Richard Sterne, Archbishop of 
York, in the reign of James II. ; and children of Simon Sterne 
and Mary Jaques, his wife, heiress of Elvington, near York."*^ 
Roger was a lieutenant in Handyside's regiment, and engaged 
in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars. He married the daughter 
of a noted sutler — " N.B., he was in debt to him," his son 
writes, pursuing the paternal biography — and marched through 
the world with this companion ; she following the regiment and 
bringing rnany children to poor Roger Sterne. The captain 
was an irascible but kind and simple little man, Sterne says, 
and informs us that his sire was run through the body at Gib- 
raltar, by a brother officer, in a duel which arose out of a dis- 
pute about a goose. Roger never entirely recovered from the 
effects of this rencontre, but died presently at Jamaica, whither 
he had followed the drum. 

Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, 
in 1 7 13, and travelled, for the first ten years of his life, on his 

* He came of a Suffolk family — one of whom settled in Nottinghamshire. The 
famous " starling " was actually the family crest. 



522 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



father's march, from barrack to transport, from Ireland to Eng- \ 
lard* _ ^ ^ 

()ne relative of his mother's took her and her family under \ 
shelter for ten months at Mullingar : another collateral de- 1| 
scendant of the Archbishop's housed them for a year at his castle ; 
near Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was put to school at Hali- j 
fax in England, finally was adopted by his kinsman of Elving- . 
ton, and parted company with his father, the Captain, who j 
marched on his path of life till he met the fatal goose, which \ 
closed his career. The most picturesque and delightful parts \ 
of Laurence Sterne's writings, we owe to his recollections of ; 
the military life. Trim's montero cap, and Le Fevre's sword, • 
and dear Uncle Toby's roquelaure, are doubtless reminiscences ^ 
of the boy, who had lived with the followers of William and \ 
Marlborough, and had beat time with his little feet to the fifes \ 
of Ramillies in Dublin barrack-yard, or played with the torn \ 
flags and halberds of Malplaquet on the parade-ground at ; 
Clonmel. \ 

Laurence remained at Halifax school till he was eighteen ^ 
years old. His wit and cleverness appear to have acquired the \ 
respect of his master here ; for when the usher whipped Lau- j 
rence for writing his name on the newly whitewashed school- \ 
room ceiling, the pedagogue in chief rebuked the understrapper, \ 
and said that the name should never be effaced, for Sterne was ! 
a boy of genius, and would come to preferment. 

His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne to Jesus j 
College, Cambridge, where he remained five years, and taking j 
orders, got, through his uncle's interest, the living of Sutton and ; 
the prebendary of York. Through his wife's connections, he \ 
got the living of Stillington. He married her in 1741 ; having \ 
ardently courted the young lady for some years previously. It ' 
was not until the young lady fancied herself dying, that she '■ 
made Sterne acquainted with the extent of her liking for him. \ 
One evening when he was sitting with her, with an almost j 
broken heart to see her so ill (the Rev. Mr. Sterne's heart was ; 
a good deal broken in the course of his life), she said — " My 1 
dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe I have \ 
not long to live ; but I have left you every shilling of my for- \ 
tune : " a generosity which overpowered Sterne. She recovered : 1 
and so they were married, and grew heartily tired of each other i 

* " It was in this parish (of Animo, in Wicklow), during our stay, that I had that ; 

wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race, whilst the mill was going, and of ! 

being taken up unhurt ; the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of \ 

Ireland, where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me.'' — Sterne. i 






STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 523 



l^fore many years were over. " Nescio quid est materia cum 
ne " Sterne writes to one of his friends (in dog-Latin, and very 
,ad dog-Latin too) ; " sed sum fatigatus et aegrotus de mea 
ixore plus quam unquam ; " which means, I am sorry to say, 
' I don't know what is the matter with me : but I am more tired 
md sick of my wife than ever."^ 

This to be sure was five-and-twenty years after Laurey had 
)een overcome bv her generosity and she by Laurey's love, 
rhen he wrote to her of the delights of marriage, saying, We 
vill be as merry and as innocent as our first parents in Para- 
lise, before the arch fiend entered that indescribable scene, 
rhe kindest affections will have room to expand in our retire- 
nent : let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a distance, 
he desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My L. has seen 
I polyanthus blow in December ?— Some friendly wall has she- 
ered it from the biting wind, No planetary influence shall 
-each us, but that which presides and cherishes the sweetest 
lowers The gloomy family of care and distrust shall be 
Danished from our dwelling, guarded by thy kind and tutelar 
leity We will sing our choral songs of gratitude and rejoice 
■0 the end of our pilgrimage. Adieu, my L. Return to one 
A^ho languishes for thy society !— As I take up my pen, my poor 
oulse quickens, my pale face glows, and tears are trickling 
iown on my paper as I trace the word L." r u u . 

And it is about this woman, with whom he finds no fault but 
^hat she bores him, that our philanthropist writes, " Sum fatiga- 
tus et se^rotus ''—Smn mortaliter m ajnore with somebody else . 
That fine flower of love, that polyanthus over which Sterne 
snivelled so many tears, could not last for a quarter ot a 

entury ! , vi 

Or rather it could not be expected that a gentleman with 

such a fountain at command should keep it to arrose?' one 

homely old lady, when a score of younger and prettier people 

mi^ht be refreshed from the same gushing source.t It was in 



eres. 
We all live 



* " My wife returns to Toulouse, and proposes to pass the summer at Bignae 
I, on the' contrary, go and visit my wife the church, m ^ ^''k^hif JA. e all 
the longer, at least the happier, for having thmgs our own ^yay ; "^J^^^^t 
maxim 1 own 'tis not the best of maxmis. but I mamtam 'tis not the worst. 
Sterne's L^^/^r^/ 20th January, 1764. -ir.t^r,^. 'Wnrintpd for 

t In a collection of ''Seven Letters by Sterne and his F"SPf^^^ S Sterne 
private circulation in 1844), is a letter of M. Tollot, who was m France with Sterne 
and his family in 1764. Here is a paragraph :— ■ ^ 

" Nous arriv^mes le lendemain a Montpellier, ou nous trouvames notre ami Mr 
Sterne, sa femme, sa fille, Mr. Huet, et quelques autres Anglaises J eus, je xous 
I'avoue, beaucoup de plaisir en revoyant le bon et ^S'■^a^^^ '^"^^/^'" ,- ^^ .,„: u 
II avait ete assez longtemps a Toulouse, oil il se serait amuse sans sa temme, qui le 



524 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



December, 1767, that the Rev. Laurence Sterne, the famouj 
Shandean, the charming Yorick, the deUght of the fashionabl | 
world, the deUcious divine, for whose sermons the whole polit 
world was subscribing,* the occupier of Rabelais's easy chaii 
only fresh stuffed and more elegant than when in possession c 
the cynical old curate of Meudon,t — the more than rival of th j 

poursuivit partout, et qui voulait etre de tout. Ces dispositions dans cette bonn I 
dame lui ont fait passer d'assez mauvais momens ; il supporte tous ces desagrenien 
avec une patience d'ange." 

About four months after this very characteristic letter, Sterne wrote to the sara i 
gentleman to whom ToUot had written ; and from his letter we may extract j 
companion paragraph : — \ 

II j!5 x * * ^^Yi which being premised, I have been for eight weeks smittei , 
with the tenderest passion that ever tender wight underwent. I wish, dear cousin! 
thou could'st conceive (perhaps thou canst witliout my wishing it) how deliciously i 
cantered away with it the first month, two up, two down, always upon my hanches\ 
along the streets from my hotel to hers, at first once — then twice, then three times ; i 
day, till at length I was within an ace of setting up my hobby-horse in her stable fo I 
good and all. I might as well, considering how the enemies of the Lord liavi j 
blasphemed thereupon. The last three weeks we were every hour upon the dolefu | 
ditty of parting ; and thou may'st conceive, dear cousin, how it altered my gait anc ] 
air: for I went and came like any louden'd carl, and did nothing but jouey de.\ 
senthnens with her from sun-rising even to the setting of the same ; andi-iow she iij, 
gone to the south of France; and to finish the com^die, I fell ill, and broke a vesse ] 
in my lungs, and half bled to death. Voila mon histoire ! " ] 

Whether husband or wife had most of the ^'^ patietice d^ange'^ may be uncertain 
but there can be no doubt which needed it most ! ^ ' 

* " ' Tristram Shandy ' is still a greater object of admiration, the man as well ail 
the book: one is invited to dmncr, where he dines, a fortnight before. As to thej 
volumes yet published, there is much good fun in them and humor sometimes hit and I 
sometimes missed. Have you read his ' Sermons,' with his own comic figure, from 
a painting by Reynolds, at the head of them .? They are in the style I think most 
proper for the pulpit, and show a strong imagination and a sensible heart ; but you 
see him often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in 
the face of the audience.'' — Gray's Letters : Jnttc 22jid, 1760. 

•' It having been observed that there was little hospitality in London— Johnson: 
' Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who has the power of pleasing, will be ver>!i| 
generally invited in London. The man. Sterne, I have been told, has had engagel 
ments for three months.' Goldsmith :' And a very dull fellow.' Johnson: ' Wh^, 
no, sir,' " — Boswell's Life of Johnson. 1 

" Her [Miss Monckton's] vivacity enchanted the sage, and they used to talM 
together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened one evening, wheiW 
siie_ insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetic. Johnson bluntl: 
denied it. 'lam sure,' said she, 'they have affected me.' 'Why,' said Johnsoii 
smiling, and rolling himself about— 'that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce: 
When she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth a 
politeness, ' Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it. 
Ibid. 

\ A passage or two from Sterne's " Sermons " may not be without interest hi 
Is not the following, levelled against the cruelties of the Church of Rome, stamp 
with the autograph of tlie author of the " Sentimental Journey .? " — 

"To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of 
Inquisition — behold religion with mercy and justice chained down under her ieei,A 
there, sitting ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks and instrumen' 
of tor.Tient. — Hark ! — what a piteous groan !— See the melancholy wretch who utter 
it, just brought forth to undergo t'r'^ anguish of a mock-trial, and endure the utmc 
pain that a studied system oi it-li^uus cruelty has been able to invent. Behold thi 



I STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 525 

t)ean of St. Patrick's, wrote the above-quoted respectable letter 
jto his friend in London : and it was in April of the same year 
that he was pouring out his fond heart to Mrs. Elizabeth 
iDraper, wife of " Daniel Draper, Esq., Councillor of Bombay 
[and, in 1775, chief of the factory of Surat — a gentleman very 
much respected in that quarter of the globe." 

'' I got thy letter last night, Eliza," Sterne writes, "on my 
return from Lord Bathurst's, where I dined " — (the letter has 
this merit in it, that it contains a pleasant reminiscence of bet 
ter men than Sterne, and introduces us to a portrait of a kind 
old gentleman) — " I got thy letter last night, Eliza, on my re- 
turn from Lord Bathurst's ; and where I was heard — as I talked 
of thee an hour without intermission — with so much pleasure 
and attention, that the good old Lord toasted your health three 
different times ; and now he is in his 85th year, says he hopes 
to live long enough to be introduced as a friend to my fair 
Indian disciple, and to see her eclipse all other Nabobesses as 
much in wealth as she does already in exterior and, what is far 
better " (for Sterne is nothing without his morality), " in interior 
Tierit. This nobleman is an old friend of mine. You know he 

lelpless victim delivered up to his tormentors. His body so wasted -with sorrow and 
^ong fonjinement, you'll see every tierue and imiscle as it suffers. — Observe the last 
movement of that horrid engine. — What convulsions it has thrown him into ! Con- 
sider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched. — What exquisite 
fiorture he endures by it. — 'Tis all nature can bear. — Good God ! see how it keeps 
lis weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips, willing to take its leave, but not 
puffered to depart. Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell, — dragg'd out of 
ft again to meet the flames — and the insults in his last agonies, which this principle — 
this principle, that there can be religion without morality— has prepared for him."— 
Sermon 2'jth. 

The next extract is preached on a texi io be found in Judges xix. vv. i, 2, 3, 
concerning a " certain Levite : " — 

" Such a one the Levite wanted to share his soUtude and fill up that uncom- 
fortable blank in the heart in such a situation ; for, notwithstanding all we meet with 
.n books, in many of which, no doubt, there are a good many handsome things said 
upon the sweets of retirement, &c. * * * * yet still * it is not good for man 
fo be alone: ' nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our ears with upon the 
subject, ever give one answer of satisfaction to the mind; in the midst of the loudest 
wauntings of philosophy, nature will have her yearnings for society and friendship ;— 
.a good heart wants some object to be kind to — and the best parts of our blood, and 
the purest of our spirits, suffer most under tlie destitution. 

" Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. God speed him ! 
For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way : let me be wise and religious^ 
bjit let me be Man ; wherever thy Providence places me, or whatever be the road I 
iake to Thee, give me some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, ' How 
Dur shadows lengthen as our sun goes down ; '—to whom I may say, ' How fresli is 
the face of Nature ! how sweet the flowers of the field ! how dehcious are these 
fruits ! ' " — Sermon \Zth. 

The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the famous "Captive." 
The second shows that the same reflection was suggested to the Rev. Laurence by a 
text in Judges as by \hefJle-de-chambre. 
I Sterne's Sermons were published as Ynose of " Mr. Yorick." 



2 26 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

was always the protector of men of wit and genius, and has had 
those of the last century, Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Prior, 
&c., always at his table. The manner in which his notice began 
of me was as singular as it was polite. He came up to me one 
day as I was at the Princess of Wales's court, and said, * I want 
to know you, Mr. Sterne, but it is fit you also should know who 
it is that wishes this pleasure. You have heard of an old Lord 
Bathurst, of whom your Popes and Swifts have sung and spoken 
so much .? I have lived my life with geniuses of that cast ; but 
have survived them ; and, despairing ever to find their equals, 
it is some years since I have shut up my books and closed my, 
accounts ; but you have kindled a desire in me of opening them 
once more before I die : which I now do : so go home and dine: 
with me.' This nobleman, I say, is a prodigy, for he has all: 
the wit and promptness of a man of thirty ; a disposition, to be; 
pleased, and a power to please others, beyond whatever I knew : ! 
added to which a man of learning, courtesy, and feeling. 

" He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with uncommon satisfac- 
tion — for there was only a third person, and of sensibility, withi 
us : and a most sentimental afternoon till nine o'clock have we: 
passed!* But thou, Eliza, wert the star that conducted and] 
enlivened the discourse ! And when I talked not of thee, still 
didst thou fill my mind, and warm every thought I uttered, fori 
I am not ashamed to acknowledge I greatly miss thee. Bestj 
of all good girls! — the sufferings I have sustained all night in- 
consequence of thine, Eliza, are beyond the power of words. 
* * * And so thou hast fixed thy Bramin's portrait oven 
thy writing desk, and will consult it in all doubts and difficul- 
ties ? — Grateful and good girl ! Yorick smiles contentedly over . 
all thou dost : his picture does not do justice to his own com- 
placency. I am glad your shipmates are friendly beings " (Eliza 
was at Deal, going back to the Councillor at Bombay, and in- 
deed it was high time she should be off). " You could least 

* " I am glad that you are in love : 'twill cure you at least of the spleen, which 
has a bad effect on both man and woman. I myself must ever have some Dulcinea in 
my head ; it harmonizes the soul ; and in these cases I first endeavor to make the 
lady believe so, or rather, I begin first to make myself believe that I am in love ; but 
I carry on my affairs quite in the French way, sentimentally : ' L amour ^ say they, 
■ n^est rien sans sentiment.' Now, notwithstanding they make such a pother about 
the word, they have no precise idea annexed to it. And so much for that same-j 
subject called love." — Sterne's Letters ■ May 23, 1765. 

" P- S.— My ' Sentimental Journey' will please Mrs. J and my Lydia" [his 

daughter, afterwards Mrs. Medalle]— " I can answer for those two. It is a subject 
which works well, and suits the frame of mind I have been in for some time past. I 
told you my design in it was to teach us to love the world and our fellow-creatures 



better than we do— so it runs most upon those gentler passions and affections whigb 
aid so much to it." — Letters [1767.] 



m 
m 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 527 

dispense with what is contrary to your own nature, which is soft 
and gentle, Eliza ; it would civilize savages — though pity were 
it thou should'st be tainted with the office. Write to me, my 
child, thy delicious letters. Let them speak the easy careless- 
ness of a heart that opens itself anyhow, everyhow. Such, 
Eliza, I write to thee ! " (The artless rogue, of course he did !) 
" And so I should ever love thee, most artlessly, most affec- 
tionately, if Providence permitted thy residence in the same 
section of the globe : for I am all that honor and affection can 
make me ' Thy Bramin.' " 

The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. Draper until the 
departure of the " Earl of Chatham " Indiaman from Deal, on 
the 2d of April, 1767. He is amiably anxious about the fresh 
paint for Eliza's cabin ; he is uncommonly solicitous about 
her companions on board : " I fear the best of your shipmates 
are only genteel by comparison with the contrasted crew with 
which thou beholdest them. So was — you know who — from 
the same fallacy which was put upon your judgment when — but 
I will not mortify you ! " 

" You know who " was, of course, Daniel Draper, Esq., of 
Bombay — a gentleman very much respected in that quarter of 
the globe, and about whose probable health our worthy Bramin 
writes with delightful candor : — 

" I honor you, Eliza, for keeping secret some things which, 
if explained, had been a panegyric on yourself. There is a 
dignity in venerable affliction which will not allow it to appeal 
to the world for pity or redress. Well have you supported 
that character, my amiable, my philosophic friend ! And, 
indeed, I begin to think you have as many virtues as my Uncle 
Toby's widow. Talking of widows — pray, Eliza, if ever you are 
such, do not think of giving yourself to some wealthy Nabob, 
because I design to marry you myself. My wife cannot live 
long, and I know not the woman I should like so well for her 
substitute as yourself. 'Tis true I am ninety-five in constitution, 
and you but twenty-five ; but what I want in youth, I will 
make up in wit and good-humor. Not Swift so loved his Stella, 
Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller his Saccharissa. Tell me, 
in answer to this, that you approve and honor the proposal." 

Approve and honor the proposal ! The coward was writing 
gay letters to his friends this while, with sneering allusions to 
this poor foolish Bratnitte. Her ship was not out of the Downs, 
and the charming Sterne was at the " Mount Coffee-house," 
with a sheet of gilt-edged paper before him, offering that pre- 
cious treasure his heart to Lady P , asking whether it gave 



528 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



her pleasure to see him unhappy? whether it added to het 
triumph that her eyes and lips had turned a man into a fool ?— ■ 
quoting the Lord's Prayer, with a horrible baseness of blas- 
phemy, as a proof that he had desired not to be led into temp- 
tation, and swearing himself the most tender and sincere fool 
in the world. It was from his home at Coxwould that he wrote 
the Latin letter, which, I suppose, he was ashamed to put into 
English. I find in my copy of the Letters, that there is a note 
of I can't call it admiration, at Letter 112, which seems to 
announce that there was a No. 3 to whom the wretched worn- 
out old scamp was paying his addresses ; t and the year after, 
having come back to his lodgings in Bond Street, with his 
" Sentimental Journey " to launch upon the town, eager as ever 
for praise and pleasure — as vain, as wicked, as witty, as false 
as he had ever been — death at length seized the feeble wretch, 
and, on the i8th of March, 1768, that " bale of cadaverous 
goods," as he calls his body, was consigned to Pluto.* In his 

* "To Mrs. H . 

Coxwould^ Nov. 15, 1767. 

" Now be a good dear woman, my H , and execute those commissions well, 

and when I see you I will give you a kiss — there's for you ! But 1 have something 
else for you which I am fabricating at a great rate, and that is my * Sentimental 
Journey,' which shall make you cry as much as it has affected me, or I will give up 
the business of sentimental writing. * * * 

"I am yo.urs, &c^&c., 

"T. Shandy." 

" To THE Earl of . 

" Coxwould, Nov. 28, 1 767. 

" My Lord, — 'Tis with the greatest pleasure I take my pen to thank your lord- 
ship for your letter of inquiry alx)ut Yorick : he was worn out, both his spirits and 
body, with the ' Sentimental Journey.' 'Tis true, then, an author must feel himself, 
or his reader will not ; but I have torn my whole frame into pieces by my feehngs : I 
believe the brain stands as much in need of recruiting as the body. Therefore I shall 
set out for tovm the twentieth of next month, after having recruited myself a week 
at York. I might indeed solace myself with my wife (who is come from France) ; 
but, in fact, I have long been a sentimental being, whatever your lordship may think 
to the contrary." 

t " In February, 1768, Laurence Sterne, his frame exhausted by long debilitating 
illness, expired at his lodgings in Bond Street, London. There was something in the 
manner of his death singularly resembling the particulars detailed by Mrs. Quickly 
as attending that of Falstaff, the compeer of Yorick for infinite jest, however unlike 
in other particulars. As he lay on his bed totally exhausted, he complained that his 
feet were cold, and requested the female attendant to chafe them. She did so, and it 
seemed to relieve him. He complained that the cold came up higher ; and whilst the 
assistant was in the act of chafing his ankles and legs, he expired without a groan. 
It was also remarkable that his death took place much in the manner which h« him- 
self had wished ; and that the last offices were rendered him, not in his own house, or 
ky the hand of kindred affection, but in an inn, and by strangers. 

"We are well acquainted with St rne's features and personal appearance, to 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITFT. 529 

last letter there is one sign of grace — the real affection with 
which he entreats a friend to be a guardian to his daughter 
Lydia. All his letters to her are artless, kind, affectionate and 
not sentimental ; as a hundred pages in his writings are beau- 
tiful, and full, not of surprising humor merely, but of genuine 
love and kindness. A perilous trade, indeed, is that of a man 
who has to bring his tears and laughter, his recollections, his 
personal griefs and joys, his private thoughts and feelings to 
market, to write them on paper, and sell them for money. 
Does he exaggerate his grief, so as to get his reader's pity 
for a false sensibility ? feign indignation, so as to establish a 
character for virtue t elaborate repartees, so that he may pass 
for a wit t steal from other authors, and put down the theft to 
the credit side of his own reputation for ingenuity and learning ? 
feign originality ? affect benevolence or misanthropy ? appeal 
to the gallery gods with claptraps and vulgar baits to catch 
applause ? 

How much of the paint and emphasis is necessary for the 
fair business of the stage, and how much of the rant and rouge 
is put on for the vanity of the actor. His audience trusts him : 
can he trust himself ? How much was deliberate calculation 
and imposture — how much was false sensibility — and how 
much true feeling .<* Where did the lie begin, and did he know 
where ? and where did the truth end in the art and scheme of 
this man of genius, this actor, this quack 1 Some time since, I 
was in the company of a French actor, who began after dinner, 
and at his own request, to sing French songs of the sort called 
des chansons grivoises, and which he performed admirably, and 
to the dissatisfaction of most persons present. Having finished 
these, he commenced a sentimental ballad — it was so charm- 
ingly sung, that it touched aU persons present, and especially 
the singer himself, whose voicft trembled, whose eyes filled with 
emotion, and who was snireD^ng and weeping quite genuine 
tears by the time his own dit^y was over. I suppose Sterne 
had this artistical sensibility ; he used to blubber perpetually 
in his study, and finding his tears infectious, and that they 
brought him a great, popularity, he exercised the lucrative gift 
of weeping : he utilized it, and cried on every occasion. I own 

which he himself frequently alludes. He was tall and thin, with a hectic and con- 
sumptive appearance.'' — Sir Walter Scott. 

" It is known that Sterne died in hired lode'ngs, and I have been told that his 
attendants robbed him even of his gold sleeved ttons while he was expiring." — Dr. 
Ferriar. 

•* He died at No. 41 (now a cheesemr strr'% n the west side of Old Bond Street," 
"-Handbook 0/ London. 



^30 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

that I don't value or respect much the cheap dribble of those 
fountains. He fatigues me with his perpetual disquiet and his 
uneasy appeals to my risible or sentimental faculties. He is 
always looking in my face, watching his effect, uncertain whether 
I think him an impostor or not ; posture-making, coaxing, and 
imploring me. " See what sensibility I have — own now that 
1 'm very clever — do cry now, you can't resist this." The humor 
of Swift and Rabelais, whom he pretended to succeed, poured 
from them as naturally as song does from a bird ; they loose 
no manly dignity with it,_ but laugh their hearty great laugh out 
of their broad chests as nature bade them. But this man — 
who can make you laugh, who can make you cry too — never 
lets his reader alone, or will permit his audience repose : when 
you are quiet, he fancies he must rouse you, and turns over 
head and heels, or sidles up and whispers a nasty storj'. The 
man is a great jester, not a great humorist. He goes to work 
systematically and of cold blood ; paints his face, puts on his 
ruff and motley clothes, and lays down his carpet and tumbles 
" on it. 

For instance, take the " Sentimental Journey," and see in 
the writer the deliberate propensity to make points and seek 
applause. He gets to " Dessein's Hotel," he wants a carriage 
to travel to Paris, he goes to the inn-yard, and begins what the 
actors call " business " at once. There is that little carriage 
(the desohligeante). '' Four months had elapsed since it had 
finished its career of Europe in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's 
coachyard, and having sallied out thence but a vamped-up 
business at first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on 
Mount Sennis, it had not profited much by its adventures, but 
by none so little as the standing so many months unpitied in 
the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coach-yard. Much, indeed, 
was not to be said for it — but something might — and when a 
few words will rescue misery out of her distress, I hate the man 
who can be a churl of them." 

Le tour est fait ! Paillasse has tumbled! Paillasse has 
jumped over the desobligeante, cleared it, hood and all, and bows 
to the noble company. Does anybody believe that this is a 
real Sentiment? that this luxury of generosity, this gallant 
rescue of Misery — out of an old cab, is genuine feeling "i It is 
as genuine as the virtuous oratory of Joseph Surface when he 
begins, '' The man who," &c., &c., and wishes to pass off for a 
saint with his credulous good-humored dupes. 
— Our friend purchases the carriage : after turning that noto- 
rious old monk to good account, and effecting (like a soft and 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITB. 



531 



good-natured Paillasse as he was, and very free with his money 
when he had it,) an exchange of snuff-boxes with the old Fran- 
ciscan, jogs out of Calais ; sets down in immense figures on the 
credit side of his account the sous he gives away to the Mon- 
treuil beggars ; and, at Nampont, gets out of the chaise and 
whimpers over that famous dead donkey, for which any 
sentimentalist may cry who will. It is agreeably and skilfully 
done — that dead jackass : like M. de Soubise's cook on the 
campaign, Sterne dresses it, and serves it up quite tender and 
with a very piquante sauce. But tears, and fine feelings, and 
a white pocket-handkerchief, and a funeral sermon, and horses 
and feathers, and a procession of mutes, and a hearse with a 
dead donkey inside ! Psha, mountebank ! I'll not give thee 
one penny more for that trick, donkey and all ! 

This donkey had appeared once before with signal effect. 
In 1765, three years before the publication of the " Sentimental 
Journey," the seventh and eighth volumes of " Tristram Shandy" 
were given to the world, and the famous Lyons donkey makes 
his entry in those volumes (pp. 315, 316) : — 

" 'Twas by a poor ass, with a couple of large panniers at his 
back, who had just turned in to collect eleemosynary turnip- 
tops and cabbage-leaves, and stood dubious, with his two fore- 
feet at the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet 
towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he was to 
go in or no. ' 

" Now 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot 
bear to strike : there is a patient endurance of suffering wrote 
so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage which pleads so 
mightily for him, that it always disarms me, and to that degree 
that I do not like to speak unkindly to him : on the contrar}--, 
meet him where I will, whether in town or country, in cart or 
under panniers, whether in liberty or bondage, I have ever 
something civil to say to him on my part ; and, as one word 
begets another (if he has as little to do as I), I generally fall 
into conversation with him ; and surely never is my imagination 
so busy as in framing responses from the etchings of his coun- 
tenance ; and where those carry me not deep enough, in flying 
from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an 
ass to think — as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, 
it is the only creature of all the classes of beings below me 
with whom I can do this. * * =* With an ass I can commune 
forever. 

" ' Come, Honesty,' said I, seeing it was impracticable to 
pass betwixt him and the gate, ' art thou for coming in or going 
out?' .- - 



532 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



" The ass twisted his head round to look up the street. 

"'Well ! ' replied I, 'we'll wait a minute for thy driver.' 

" He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wist' 
fully the opposite way. 

" ' I understand thee perfectly,' answered I : * if thou takest 
a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death. Well ! 
a minute is but a minute ; and if it saves a fellow -creature a 
drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent.' 

" He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse 
went on, and, in the little peevish contentions between hunger 
and unsavoriness, had dropped it out of his mouth half a 
dozen times, and had picked it up again. 'God help thee 
Jack ! ' said I, ' thou hast a bitter breakfast 'on't — and many a 
bitter day's labor, and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages ! , 
'Tis all, all bitterness to thee — whatever life is to others ! And i 
now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare ! 
say, as soot ' (for he had cast aside the stem), ' and thou hast { 
not a friend perhaps in all this world that will give thee a maca- j 
roon.' In saying this, I pulled out a paper of 'em, which I had 
just bought, and gave him one ; — and, at this moment that I am ; 
telling it, my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantry j 
in the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon, than I 
of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act. | 

" When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to ; 
come in. The poor beast was heavy loaded — his legs seemed ; 
to tremble under him — he hung rather backwards, and, as 1 j 
pulled at his halter, it broke in my hand. He looked up pen- j 
sive in my face : ' Don't thrash me with it ; but if you will you i 
may.' ' If I do,' said I, ' I'll be d .' " \ 

A critic who refuses to see in this charming description wit, ; 
humor, pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real sentiment, \ 
must be hard indeed to move and to please. A page or two ', 
farther we come to a description not less beautiful — a land-j 
scape and figures, deliciously painted by one who had thej 
keenest enjoyment and the most tremulous sensibility : — ; 

" 'Twas in the road between Nismes and Lunel, where is : 
the best Muscatto wine in all France : the sun was set, they | 
had done their work : the nymphs had tied up their hair afresh, \ 
and the swains were preparing for a carousal. My mule made • 
a dead point. ' 'Tis the pipe and tambourine,' said I — ' I never \ 
will argue a point with one of your family as long as I live ; ' i 
so leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch ! 
and t'other into that, ' I'll take a dance,' said I, 'so stay you! 
here,* 



STERNE AIVD GOLDSMITH. ^33 

" A sun-burnt daughter of labor rose up from the group to 
meet me as I advanced towards them ; her hair, which was of 
a dark chestnut approaching to a black, was tied up in a knot, 
all but a single tress. 

" * We want a cavalier,' said she, holding out both her hands, 
as if to offer them. ' And a cavalier you shall have,' said I, taking 
hold of both of them. ' We could not have done without you,' 
said she, letting go one hand, with self-taught politeness, and 
leading me up with the other. 

" A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, 
and to which he had added a tambourine of his own accord, ran 
sweetly over the prelude, as he sat upon the bank. ' Tie me 
up this tress instantly,' said Nannette, putting a piece of string 
into my hand. It taught me to forget I was a stranger. The 
whole knot fell down — we had been seven years acquainted. 
The youth struck the note upon the tambourine, his pipe fol- 
lowed, and off we bounded. 

" The sister of the youth — who had stolen her voice from 
heaven — sang alternately with her brother. 'Twas a Gascoigne 
roundelay: ^VivaIaJoia,Jido7i la tristessa.^ The nymphs joined 
in unison, and their swains an octave below them. 

" Viva lajoia was in Nannette's lips, viva la joia in her 
eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across the space betwixt 
us. She looked amiable. Why could I not live and end my 
days thus ? * Just Disposer of our joys and sorrows ! ' cried I, 
' why could not a man sit down in the lap of content here, and 
dance, and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven with 
this nut-brown maid ? ' Capriciously did she bend her head on 
one side, and dance up insidious. ' Then 'tis time to dance 
off,' quoth I." 

And with this pretty dance and chorus, the volume artfully 
concludes. Even here one can't give the whole description. 
There is not a page in Sterne's writing but has something that 
were better away, a latent corruption — a hint, as of an impure 
presence.* 

* " With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which presses so serr 
ously upon his character as a writer, I would remark that there is a sort of knowing- 
ness, the wit of which depends, ist, on the modesty it gives pain to; or, 2dly, on the 
innocence and innocent ignorance over which it triumphs ; or, 3dly, on a certain os- 
cillation in the individual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroach- 
ing evil of his nature — a sort of dallying with the devil — a fluxionary art of combining 
courage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle witli his fingers for the first 
time, or better still, perhaps, like that trembling daring with which a child touches a 
hot tea-urn, because it has been forbidden ; so that the mind has its own white and 
black angel ; the same or similar amusement as may be supposed to take place be- 
tween an old debauchee and a prude — the feeling resentment, on the one hand, from a 



^24 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

Some of that dreary double entendre may be attributed to 
freer times and manners than ours, but not all. The foul 
Satyr's eyes leer out of the leaves constantly : the last words 
the famous author wrote were bad and wicked — the last lines 
the poor stricken wretch penned were for pity and pardon. I 
think of these past writers and of one who lives amongst us 
now, and am grateful for the innocent laughter and the sweet 
and unsullied page which the author of " David Copperfield " 
gives to my children. 

" Jete sur cette boule, 
Laid, chetif et souffrant ; 
Etouffe dans la foule, 
Faute d'etre assez grand : 

*' Une plainte touchante 
De ma bouche sortit. 
Le bon Dieu me dit : Chante, 
Chante, pauvre petit ! 

" Chanter, ou je m'abuse, 

Est ma'tache ici bas. 

Tous ceux qu'ainsi j'amuse, 

Ne m'aimeront-ils pas ? " ^-o 

In those charming lines of Beranger, one may fancy de- 
scribed the career, the sufferings, the genius, the gentle nature 
of Goldsmith, and the esteem in which we hold him. Who, 
of the millions whom he has amused, doesn't love him ? To 
be the most beloved of English writers, what a title that is for 
a man ! * A wild youth, wayward, but full of tenderness and 

prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a character ; and, on the other, an 
inward sympathy with the enemy. We have only to suppose society innocent, and 
then nine-tenths of this sort of wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no 
sound, because exciting no resistance ; the remainder rests on its being an offence 
against the good manners of human nature itself. 

" This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with wit, drollery, 
fancy, and even humor ; and we have only to regret the misalliance ; but that the 
latter are quite distinct from the former, may be made evident by abstracting in our 
imagination the morality of the characters of Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and Trim, 
which are all antagonists to this spurious sort of wit, from the rest of ' Tristram 
Shandy,' and by supposing, instead of them, the presence of two or three callous de- 
bauchees. The result will be pure disgust. Sterne cannot be too severely censured 
for thus using the best dispositions of our nature as the panders and condiments for 
the basest."— Coleridge : Literary Remains^ \o\.\. pp. 141, 142. 

* '* He was a friend to virtue, and in his most playful pages never forgets what Is 
due to it. A gentleness, delicacy and purity of feeling distinguishes whatever he 
wrote, and bears a correspondence to the generosity of a disposition which knew no 
bounds but his last guinea. * * * * 

" The admirable ease and grace of the narrative, as well as the pleasing truth with 
which the principal characters are designed, make the ' Vicar of Wakefield ' one of the 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 535 

affection, quits the country village where his boyhood has been 
passed in happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to see 
the great world out of doors, and achieve name and fortune \ 
and after years of dire struggle, and neglect and poverty, his 
heart turning back as fondly to his native place as it had 
longed eagerly for change when sheltered there, he writes a 
book and a poem, full of the recollections and feelings of home : 
he paints the friends and scenes of his youth, and peoples 
Auburn and Wakefield with remembrances of Lissoy. Wander 
he must, but he carries away a home-relic with him, and dies 
with it on his breast. His nature is truant ; in repose it longs 
for change : as on the journey it looks back for friends and 
quiet. He passes to-day in building an air-castle for to-mor- 
row, or in writing yesterday's elegy ; and he would fly away 
this hour, but that a cage and necessity keeps him. What is 
the charm of his verse, of his style, and humor ? His sweet 
regrets, his delicate compassion, his soft smile, his tremulous 
sympathy, the weakness which he owns ? Your love for him is 
half pity. You come hot and tired from the day's battle, and 
this sweet minstrel sings to you. Who could harm the kind 
vagrant harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries no 
weapon, save the harp on which he plays to you ; and with 
which he delights great and humble, young and old, the cap- 
tains in the tents, or the soldiers round the fire, or the women 
and children in the villages, at whose porches he stops and 
sings his simple songs of love and beauty. With that sweet 
story of the " Vicar of Wakefield " =* he has found entry intor 

most delicious morsels of fictitious composition on which the human mind was ever 
employed. 

u * * * jij -^yg j.ga(j the < Vicar of Wakefield 'in youth and in age — we return to it 
again and again, and bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile 
us to human nature." — Sir Walter Scott. 

* " Now Herder came," says Goethe in his Autobiography, relating his first ac- 
quaintance with Goldsmith's masterpiece, " and together with his great knowledge 
brought many other aids, and the later publications besides. Among these he an- 
nounced to us the * Vicar of Wakefield ' as an excellent work, with the German 
translation of which he would make us acquainted by reading it aloud to us him- 
self. * * * * 

" A Protestant country clergyman is perhaps the most beautiful subject for a 
modern idyl ; he appears like Melchizedeck, as priest and king in one person. To 
the most innocent situation which can be imagined on earth, to that of a husband- 
man, he is, for the most part, united by similarity of occupation as well as by equality 
in family relationships ; he is a father, a master of a family, an agriculturist, and thus 
perfectly a member of the community. On this pure, beautiful earthly foundation 
rests his higher calling : to him is it given to guide men through life, to take care of 
their spiritual education, to bless them at all the leading epochs of their existence, to 
instruct, to strengthen, to console them, and if consolation is not sufficient for the 
present, to call up and guarantee the hope of a happier future. Imagine such a man 
with pure human sentiments, strong enough not to deviate from them under any cir- 



536 



ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 



every castle and every hamiet in Europe. Not one of us, how- 
ever busy or hard, but once or twice in our lives has passed an 
evening with him, and undergone the charm of his delightful 
music. 

Goldsmith's father was no doubt the good Doctor Primrose, 
whom we all of us know.* Swift was yet alive, when the little 

cunistances, and by this already elevated above* the multitude of whom one cannot 
expect purity and firmness ; give him the learning necessary for his office, as well as 
a cheerful, equable activity, which is even passionate, as it neglects no moment to do 
good — and you will have him well endowed. But at the same time add the necessary 
limitation, so that he must not only pause in a small circle, but may also, perchance, 
pass over to a smaller ; grant him good-nature, placability, resolution, and everything 
else praiseworthy that springs from a decided character, and over all this a clicerful 
spirit of compliance, and a smiling toleration of his own failings and those of others, 
—then you will have put together pretty well the image of our excellent Wakefield. 

" The delineation of this character on his course of life through joys and sorrows, 
the ever-increasing interest of the story, by the combination of the entirely natural 
with the strange and the singular, make this novel one of the best whicli has ever been 
written ; besides this, it has the great advantage that it is quite moral, nay, in a pure 
sense. Christian — represents the reward of a good-will and perseverance in the right, 
strengthens an unconditional confidence in God, and attests the final triumph of good 
over evil ; and all this without a trace of cant or pedantry. The author was preserved 
from both of these by an elocution of mind that shows itself throughout in the form 
of irony, by which this little work must appear to us as wise as it is amiable. The 
author, Dr. Goldsmith, has, vk^ithout question, a great insight into the moral world, into 
its strength and its infirmities ; but at the same time he can thankfully acknowledge 
that he is an Englishman, and reckon highly the advantages which his country and 
his nation afford him. The family, with the delineation of which he occupies liiraself, 
stands upon one of the last steps of citizen comfort, and yet comes in contact with 
the highest ; its narrow circle, which becomes still more contracted, touches upon the 
great world through the natural and civil course of things; this little skiff floats on 
the agitated waves of English life, and in weal or woe it has to expect injury or help 
^from the vast fleet which sails around it. 

" I may suppose that my readers know this work, and have ,it in memory ; who- 
ever hears it named for the first time here, as well as he who is induced to read it 
again, will thank me." — Goethe : Truth and Poetry ; from my own Life. 
(English Translation, vol. i. pp. 378, 379.) 

" He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one bright, 
the other blundering ; or to have had fairy gifts laid in his cradle by the ' good 
people ' who haunted his birthplace, the old goblin mansion on the banks of the 
Inny. 

" He carries wth him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so term it, tliroughout 
his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at school, academy, or college : they unfit 
him for close study and practical science, and rendei- him heedless of everything that 
does not address itself to his poetical imagination and genial and festive feelings ; 
they dispose him to break away from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and 
haunted streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the country like a gipsy 
in quest of odd adventures.* * * * 

" Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate with the poor, they 
never could betray him into companionship with the depraved. His relish for 
humor, and for the study of character, as we have before observed, brought him often 
into convivial company of a vulgar kind ; but he discriminated between their vul- 
garity and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole store familiar 
features of life which form the staple of his most popular writings." — Washington 
Irving. 

* " The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or, as it was occasionally written, Gould 
smith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, and seems always to have held a respec- 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 



537 



Oliver was born at Pallas, or Pallasmore, in the county of 
Longford, in Ireland. In 1730, two years after the child's birth, 
Charles Goldsmith removed his family to Lissoy, in the county 
of Westmeath, that sweet " Auburn " which every person who 
hears me has seen in fancy. Here the kind parson * brought up 
his eight children ; and loving all the world, as his son says, 
fancied all the world loved him. He had a crowd of poor de- 
pendants besides those hungry children. He kept an open 
table ; round which sat flatterers and poor friends, who laughed 
at the honest rector's many jokes, and ate the produce of his 
seventy acres of farm. Those who have seen an Irish house in 
the present day can fancy that one of Lissoy. The old beggar 
still has his allotted corner by the kitchen turf ; the maimed 
old soldier still gets his potatoes and butter-milk ; the poor 
cotter still asks his honor's charity, and prays God bless his 
reverence for the sixpence ; the ragged jDcnsioner still takes his 
place by right and sufferance. There's still a crowd in the 
kitchen, and a crowd round the parlor-table, profusion, con- 
fusion, kindness, poverty. If an Irishman comes to London 
to make his fortune, he has a-., half-dozen of Irish depend- 
ants who take a percentage of his earnings. The good Charles 
Goldsmith f left but little provision for his hungry race when 

table station in society. Its origin is English, supposed to be derived from that which 
was long settled at Crayford in Kent." — Prior's Life of Goldstnith. 

Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were clergymen ; 
and two of them married clergymen's daughters. 

* " At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorn'd the venerable place ; 
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With steady zeal each honest rustic ran ; 
E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, 
And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile. 
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, 
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. 
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."— TVz^ Deserted Village. 

*"In May this year (1768), he lost his brother, the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, for 
whom he had been unable to obtain preferment in the church. * * * * 

" * * * To the curacy of Kilkenny West, the modern stipend of which, forty 
pounds a year, is sufficiently celebrated by his brother's lines. It has been stated 
that Mr. Goldsmith added a school, which, after having been held at more than one 
place in the vicinity, was finally fixed at Lissoy. Here his talents and industry gave 
it celebrity, and under his care the sons of many of the neighboring gentry received 



538 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

death summoned him ; and one of his daughters being engaged 
to a Squire of rather superior dignity, Charles Goldsmith im- 
poverished the rest of his family to provide the girl with a 
dowry. 

The small-pox, which scourged all Europe at that time, and 
ravaged the roses off the cheeks of half the world, fell foul of 
poor little Oliver's face, when the child was eight years old, 
and left him scarred and disfigured for his life. An old woman 
in his father's village taught him his letters, and pronounced 
him a dunce : Paddy Byrne, the hedge-schoolmaster, took him in 
hand ; and from Paddy Byrne, he was transmitted to a clergy- 
man at Elphin. When a child was sent to school in those days, 
the classic phrase was that he was placed under Mr. So-and-so's 
ferule. Poor little ancestors ! It is hard to think how ruthlessly 
you were birched ; and how much of needless whipping and 
tears our small forefathers had to undergo ! A relative — kind 
uncle Contarine, took the main charge of little Noll ; who went 
through his school-days righteously doing as little work as he 
could : robbing orchards, playing at ball, and making his 
pocket-money fly about whenever fortune sent it to him. Every- 
body knows the story of that' famous " Mistake of a Night," 
when the young schoolboy, provided 'with a guinea and a nag, 
rode up to the " best house " in Ardagh, called for the land- 
lord's company over a bottle of wine at supper, and for a hot 
cake for breakfast in the morning ; and found, when he asked 
for the bill, that the best house was Squire Featherstone's, and 
not the inn for which he mistook it. Who does not know every 
story about Goldsmith .? That is a delightful and fantastic 
picture of the child dancing and capering about in the kitchen 
at home, when the old fiddler gibed at him for his ugliness, and 
called him /Esop ; and little Noll made his repartee of " Her- 
alds proclaim aloud this saying — see ^sop dancing and his 
monkey playing." One can fancy a queer pitiful look of hu- 
mor and appeal upon that little scarred face — the funny little 
dancing figure, the funny little brogue. In his life, and his writ- 

their education. A fever breaking out among the boys about 1765, they dispersed 
for a time, but re-assembling at Athlone, he continued his scholastic labors there 
until the time of his death, which happened, like that of his brother, about the forty- 
fifth year of his age. He was a man of an excellent heart and an amiable disposi- 
tion." — Prior's Goldsmith. 

" Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee : 
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain." 

— The Traveller. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. ^^^j 

ings, which are the honest expression of it, he is constantly be- 
wailing that homely face and person ; anon, he surveys them in 
the glass ruefully, and presently assumes the most comical dig- 
nity. He likes to deck out his little person in splendor and fine 
colors. ' He presented himself to be examined for ordination in 
a pair of scarlet breeches, and said honestly that he did not like 
to go into the church, because he was fond of colored clothes. 
When he tried to practise as a doctor, he got by hook or by 
crook a black velvet suit, and looked as big and grand as he 
could, and kept his hat over a patch on the old coat : in better 
days he bloomed out in plum-color, in blue silk, and in new 
velvet. For some of those splendors the heirs and assignees 
of Mr. Filby, the tailor, have never been paid to this day : per- 
haps the kind tailor and his creditor have met and settled the 
little account in Hades."* 

They showed until lately a window at Trinity College, Dub- 
lin, on which the name of O. Goldsmith was engraved with a 
diamond. Whose diamond was it ? Not the young sizar's, who 
made but a poor figure in that place of learning. He was idle, 
penniless, and fond of pleasure : t he learned his way early to 
the pawnbroker's shop. He wrote ballads, they say, for the 
street-singers, who paid him a crown for a poem : and his pleas- 
ure was to steal out at night and hear his verses sung. He was 
chastised by his tutor for giving a dance in his room, and took 
the box on the ear so much to heart, that he packed up his all, 
pawned his books and little property, and disappeared from 
college and family. He said he intended to go to America, but 
when his money was spent, the young prodigal came home rue- 
fully, and the good folks there killed their calf — it was but a 
lean one — and welcomed him back. 

After college, he hung about his mother's house, and lived 
for some 3^ears the life of a buckeen — passed a month with this 
relation and that, a year with one patron, a great deal of time at 
the public-house, t Tired of this life, it was resolved that he 

* " When Goldsmith died, half the unpaid bill he owed to Mr. William Filby 
(amounting in all to 79/.) was for clothes supplied to this nephew Hodson." — 
Forster's Goldsmith^ p. 520. 

As this nephew Hodson ended his days (see the same page) " a prosperous 
Irish gentleman," it is not unreasonable to wish that he had cleared off Mr. Filby's 
bill. 

t " Poor fellow ! He hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a goose, 
but when he saw it on the table." — Cumberland's Memoirs. 

X " These youthful follies, like the fermentation of liquors, often disturb the mind 
only in order to its future refinement : a hfe spent in phlegmatic apathy resembles 
those liquors which never ferment, and are consequently always muddy." — Gold- 
smith : Memoir of Voltaire. 

" He [Johnson] said ' Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late . There appeared 
nothing remarkable about him when he was young.' " — Boswell. 



540 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

should go to London, and study at the Temple ; but he got no 
farther on the road to London and the woolsack than Dublin, 
where he gambled away the fifty pounds given to him for his 
outfit, and whence he returned to the indefatigable forgiveness 
of home. Then he determined to be a doctor, and uncle Conta- 
rine helped him to a couple of years at Edinburgh. Then from 
Edinburgh he felt that he ought to hear the famous professors 
of Leyden and Paris, and wrote most amusing pompous letters 
to his uncle about the great Farheim, Du Petit, and Duhamel 
du Monceau, whose lectures he proposed to follow. If uncle 
Contarine believed those letters — if Oliver's mother believed 
that story which the youth related of his going to Cork, with the 
purpose of embarking for America, of his having paid his 
passage-money, and having sent his kit on board ; of the anony- 
mous captain sailing away with Oliver's valuable luggage, in a 
nameless ship, never to return ; if uncle Contarine and the 
mother at Ballymahon believed his stories, they must have been 
a very simple pair ; as it was a very simple rogue indeed who 
cheated them. When the lad, after failing in his clerical exam- 
ination, after failing in his plan for studying the law, took leave 
of these projects and of his parents, and set out for Edinburgh, 
he saw mother, and uncle, and lazy Ballymahon, and green 
native turf, and sparkling river for the last time. He was 
never to look on old Ireland more, and only in fancy revisit her. 

" But me not destined such delights to share, 
My prime of life in wandering spent and care, 
Impalled, with steps unceasing, to pursue 
Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view ; 
That hke the circle bounding earth and skies 
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies : 
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, 
And find no spot of all the world my own.** 

I spoke in a former lecture of that high courage which ena- 
bled Fielding, in spite of disease, remorse and poverty, always 
to retain a cheerful spirit, and to keep his manly benevolence 
and love of truth intact, as if these treasures had been confided 
to him for the public benefit, and he was accountable to poster- 
ity for their honorable employ ; and a constancy equally happy 
and admirable I think was shown by Goldsmith, whose sweet 
and friendly nature bloomed kindly always in the midst of a 
life's storm, and rain, and bitter weather. "* The poor fellow 

* " An ' inspired idiot,' Goldsmith, hangs strangely about him [Johnson], 
♦ * * * Yet, on the whole, there is no evil in the * gooseberry-fool,' but rathM- 
much good ; of a finer, if of a weaker sort than Johnson's ; and all the more genuine 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 54I 

was never so friendless but he could befriend some one ; never 
so pinched and wretched but he could give of his crust, and 
speak his word of compassion. If he had but his flute left, he 
could give that, and make the children happy in the dreary- 
London court. He could give the coals in that queer coal- 
scuttle we read of to his poor neighbor ; he could give away his 
blankets in college to the poor widow, and warm himself as he 
best might in the feathers : he could pawn his coat to save his 
landlord from jail : when he was a school-usher he spent his 
earnings in treats for the boys, and the good-natured school- 
master's wife said justly that she ought to keep Mr. Goldsmith's 
money as well as the young gentlemen's. When he met his 
pupils in later life, nothing would satisfy the Doctor but he 
must treat them still. " Have you seen the print of me after 
Sir Joshua Reynolds ? " he asked of one of his old pupils. 
" Not seen it ? not bought it ? Sure, Jack, if your picture had 
been published, I'd not have been without it half an hour." 
His purse and his heart were everybody's, and his friends' as 
much as his own. When he was at the height of his reputation, 
and the Earl of Northumberland, going as Lord Lieutenant to 
Ireland, asked if he could be of any service to Dr. Goldsmith, 
Goldsmith recommended his brother, and not himself, to the 
great man. " My patrons," he gallantly said, " are the book- 
sellers, and I want no others." ^ Hard patrons they were, and 
hard work he did ; but he did not complain much : if in his 
early writings some bitter words escaped him, some allusions' 
to neglect and poverty, he withdrew these expressions when his 
works were republished, and better days seemed to open for 
him ; and he did not care to complain that printer or publisher 

that he himself could never become conscious of it, — though unhappily never cease 
attempting to become so : the author of the genuine ' Vicar of Wakefield,' nill he 
will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine manhood.'' — Carlylk's 
Essays (2d ed.), vol. iv. p. 91. 

* " At present, the few poets of England no longer depend on the great for sub- 
sistence ; they have now no other patrons but the public, and the public, collectively 
considered, is a good and a generous master. It is indeed too frequently mistaken as 
to the merits of every candidate for favor ; but to make amends, it is never mistaken 
long. A performance indeed may be forced for a time into reputation, but, destitute 
of real merit, it soon sinks ; time, the touchstone of what is truly valuable, will soon 
discover the fraud, and an author shoul'\ never arrogate to himself any share of suc- 
cess till his works have been read at least ten years with satisfaction. 

" A man of letters at present, whose works are valuable, is perfectly sensible of 
their value. Every polite member of the community, by buying what he writes, 
contributes to reward him. The ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret might have 
b&en wit in the last age, but continues such no longer, because no longer true. A 
writer of real merit now may easily be rich, if his heart be set only on fortune : and 
for those who have no merit, it is but fit that such should remain in merited 
obscurity.''— Goldsmith : Citizen of the World, Let. 84. 



^42 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

had overlooked his merit, or left him poor. The Court face 
was turned from honest Oliver, the Court patronized Beattie ; 
the fashion did not shine on him — fashion adored Sterne.* 
Fashion pronounced Kelly to be the great writer of comedy of 
his day. A little — not ill-humor, but plaintiveness — a little 
betrayal of wounded pride which he showed render him not 
the less amiable. The author of the " Vicar of Wakefield " 
had a right to protest when Newbery kept back the MS. for 
two years ; had a right to be a little peevish with Sterne ; a 
little angry when Colman's actors declined their parts in his 
delightful comedy, when the manager refused to have a scene 
painted for it, and pronounced its damnation before hearing. 
He had not the great public with him ; but he had the noble 
Johnson, and the admirable Reynolds, and the great Gibbon, 
and the great Burke, and the great Fox — friends and admirers 
illustrious indeed, as famous as those who, fifty years before, 
sat round Pope's table. 

Nobody knows, and I dare say Goldsmith's buoyant temper 
kept no account of all the pains which he endured during the 
early period of his literary career. Should any man of letters 
in our day have to bear up against such, heaven grant he may 
come out of the period of misfortune with such a pure kind 
heart as that which Goldsmith obstinately bore in his breast. 
The insults to which he had to submit are shocking to read of 
— slander, contumely, vulgar satire, brutal malignity perverting 
his commonest motives and actions ; he had his share of these, 
and one's anger is roused at reading of them, as it is at seeing 
a woman insulted or a child assaulted, at the notion that a 
creature so very gentle and weak, and full of love, should have 

* Goldsmith attacked Sterne obviously enough, censuring his indecency, and 
slighting his wit, and ridiculing his manner, in the 53d letter in the " Citizen of the 
World." 

" As in common conversation," says he, "the best way to make the audience 
laugh is by first laughing yourself ; so in writing, the properest manner is to show an 
attempt at humor, which will pass upon most for humor in reality. To effect 
this, readers must be treated with the most perfect familiarity; in one page the 
author is to niake them a low bow, and in the next to pull them by the nose; 
lie must talk in riddles, and then send them to bed in order to dream for the solu- 
tion," &c. 

Sterne's humorous mot on the subject of the gravest part of the charges, then, as 
now, made against him, may perhaps be quoted here, from the excellent, the respect- 
able Sir Walter Scott :— 

" Soon after * Tristram ' had appeared, Sterne asked a Yorkshire lady of fortune 
and condition whether she had read his book. * I have not, Mr. Sterne,' was the 
answer ; ' and to be plain with you, I am informed it is not proper for female perusal.* 
' My dear good lady,' replied the author, ' do not be gulled by such stories ; the book 
is like your young heir there ' (pointing to a child of three years old, who was rolling 
on the carpet in his white tunic) : ' he shows at times a good deal that is usually 
concealed, but it is all in perfect innocence.' " 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. ^43 

had to suffer so. And he had worse than insult to undergo — 
to own to fault and deprecate the anger of ruffians. There is 
a letter of his extant to one Griffiths, a bookseller, in which 
poor Goldsmith is forced to confess that certain books sent by 
Griffiths are in the hands of a friend from whom Goldsmith 
had been forced to borrow money. " He was wild, sir," John- 
son said, speaking of Goldsmith to Boswell, with his great, 
wise benevolence and noble mercifulness of heart — " Dr. Gold- 
smith was wild, sir ; but he is so no more." Ah ! if we pity the 
good and weak man who suffers undeservedly, let us deal very 
gently with him from whom misery extorts not only tears, but 
shame ; let us think humbly and charitably of the human nature 
that suffers so sadly and falls so low. Whose turn may it be 
to-morrow? What weak heart, confident before trial, may not 
succumb under temptation invincible ? Cover the good man 
who has been vanquished — cover his face and pass on. 

For the last half-dozen years of his life, Goldsmith was far 
removed from the pressure of any ignoble necessity : and in 
the receipt, indeed, of a pretty large income from the book- 
sellers his patrons. Had he lived but a few years more, his 
public fame would have been as great as his private reputation, 
and he might have enjoyed alive a part of that esteem which his 
country has ever since paid to the vivid and versatile genius 
who has touched on almost every subject of literature, and 
touched nothing that he did not adorn. Except in rare in- 
stances, a man is known in our profession, and esteemed as a 
skilful workman, years before the lucky hit which trebles his 
usual gains, and stamps him a popular author. In the strength 
of his age, and the dawn of his reputation, having for backers 
and friends the most illustrious literary men of his time,* fame 
and prosperity might have been in store for Goldsmith, had 
fate so willed it : and, at forty-six, had not sudden disease 
carried him off. I say prosperity rather than competence, for 
it is probable that no sum could have put order into his affairs 
or sufficed for his irreclaimable habits of dissipation. It must 
be remembered that he owed 2,000/. when he died. "Was 
ever poet," Johnson asked, " so trusted before ? " As has 

* " Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a Natural History ; and 
that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings at a farmer's house, near 
to the six-mile stone in the Edgware Road, and had carried down his books in two 
returned postchaises. He said he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd 
character, similar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her 
children ; he was The Gentleman. Mr, Mickle, the translator of the ' Lusiad,' and 
I, went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at Home ; but 
having a curiosity to see his apartment,''we went in, and found curious scraps of 
descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall with a blacklead pencil." — Boswell. 



544 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. \ 

been the case with many another good fellow of his nation, hisi 
life was tracked and his substance wasted by crowds of hungr} ; 
beggars and lazy dependants. If they came at a lucky tim€| 
(and be sure they knew his affairs better than he did himself i 
and watched his pay-day), he gave them of his money : if the3i 
begged on empty-purse days he gave them his promissory bills ) 
or he treated them to a tavern where he had credit ; or h( 
obliged them with an order upon honest Mr. Filby for coats 
for which he paid as long as he could earn, and until the shean 
of Filby were to cut for him no more. Staggering under a loac 
of debt and labor, tracked by bailiffs and reproachful creditors 
running from a hundred poor dependants, whose appealing 
looks were perhaps the hardest of all pains for him to bear 
devising fevered plans for the morrow, new histories, new com 
edies, all sorts of new literary schemes, flying from all these 
into seclusion, and out of seclusion into pleasure — at last, ai 
five and forty, death seized him and closed his career.* \ 
have been many a time in the chambers in the Temple whicll 
were his, and passed up the staircase, which Johnson, andBurkei 
and Reynolds trod to see their friend, their poet, their kind Gold; 
smith — the stair on which the poor women sat weeping bitterly 
when they heard that the greatest and most generous of al 
men was dead within the black oak door.f Ah, it was a dif 
ferent lot from that for which the poor fellow sighed, when h« 
wrote with heart yearning for home those most charming of al 
fond verses, in which he fancies he revisits Auburn — 

" Here, as I take my solitary rounds, 
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, 

* " When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, ' Your pulse is ill 
greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of fever which you have; is you, 
mind at ease ? ' Goldsmith answered it was not." — Dr. Johnson (/« Bosweli). 

" Chambers, you find, is gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone much further. Hi' 
died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the fear of distress. He had raisec: 
money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. Bu 
let not his failings be remembered ; he was a very great man." — Dr. Johnson t< 
Bosweli, July 5 M, 1774. ! 

t_" When Burke was told [of Goldsmith's death] he burst into tears. Reynold, 
was in his painting-room when the messenger went to him ; but at once he laid hi: 
pencil aside, which in times of great family distress he had not been known to do' 
left his painting-room, and did not re-enter it that day. i 

" The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with mourners, thi 
reverse of domestic ; women without a home, without domesticity of any kind, witl 
no friend but him they had come to weep for ; outcasts of that great, solitary, wicke< 
city, to whom he had never forgotten to be kind and charitable. And he haJ' 
domestic mourners, too. His coffin was re-opened at the request of Miss Hornedi 
and her sister (such was the regard he was known to have for them I) that a loci: 
might bfe cut from his hair. It was in Mrs. Gwyn's possession srben she died, afta; 
ntarly seventy years."— Forster's Gofdstvith, 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH, 545 

And, many a year elapsed, return to view 
Wliere once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train. 
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. 

In all my wanderings round this world of care. 
In all my griefs — and God has given my share — 
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown. 
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
To husband out life's taper at the close. 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose ; 
I still had hopes — for pride attends us still — 
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill. 
Around my fire an evening group to draw. 
And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; 
And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue. 
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew — 
I still had hopes — my long vexations past, 
Here to return, and die at home at last. 

O blest retirement, friend to life's decline ! 
Retreats from care that never must be mine — 
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 
Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
For him no wretches born to work and weep 
Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep ; 
No surly porter stands in guilty state 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate : 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; 
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 
Whilst resignation gently slopes the way ; 
And all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past." 

In these verses, I need not say with what melody, with 
at touching truth, with what exquisite beauty of compari- 
. — as indeed in hundreds more pages of the writings of this 
lest soul — the whole charaQ,ter of the man is told — his 
bble confession of faults and weakness ; his pleasant little 
ity, and desire that his village should admire him ; his simple 
eme of good in which everybody was to be happy — no beg- 
was to be refused his dinner — nobody in fact was to work 
ph, and he to be the harmless chief of the Utopia, and the 
ciarch of the Irish Yvetot. He would have told again, and 
lout fear of their failing, those famous jokes * which had 

Goldsmith's incessant desire of being conspicuous in company was the 
iion of his sometimes appearing to such disadvantage, as one should hardly have 
osed possible in a man of his genius. When his literary reputation had risen 
rvedly high, and his society was much courted, he became very jealous of the 
.ordinary attention which was everywhere paid to Johnson. One evening, in a 
I of wits, he found fault with me for talking of Johnson as entitled to the honor 



-^6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

hung fire in London ; he would have talked of his great friends 
of the Club — of my Lord Clare and my Lord Bishop, my 
Lord Nugent — sure he knew them intimately, and was handj 
and glove with some of the best men in town — and he wouldj 
have spoken of Johnson and of Burke, and of Sir Joshua whc 
had painted him — and he would have told wonderful sly stories^ 
of Ranelagh and the Pantheon, and the masquerades at Mad- 
ame Cornells' ; and he would have toasted, with a sigh, the^ 
Jessamy Bride — the lovely Mary Horneck. ; 

The figure of that charming young lady forms one of thft 
prettiest recollections of Goldsmith's life. She and her beauti 
ful sister, who married Bunbury, the graceful and humoroua 
amateur artist of those days, when Gilray had but just begun 
to try his powers^ were among the kindest and dearest of Gold( 
smith's many friends, cheered and pitied him, traVelled abroac 
with him, made him welcome at their home, and gave hiii 

of unquestionable superiority. ' Sir,' said he, ' you are for making a monarchy c 
what should be a republic' 

" He was still more mortified, when, talking in a company with fluent vivacitj 
and, as he flattered himself, to the admiration of all present, a German who sat nex 
him, and perceived Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, suddenly stoppe 
him, saying, ' Stay, stay— Toctor Shonson is going to zay zomething.' This wa 
no doubt very provoking, especially to one so irritable as Goldsmith, who frequentl 
mentioned it with strong expressions of indignation. 

« It may also be observed that Goldsmith was sometimes content to be treate 
with an easy familiaritv, but upon occasions would be consequential and importan 
An instance of this occurred in a small particular. Johnson had a way of contractir 
the names of his friends, as Beauclerk, Beau ; Boswell, Bozzy. * * * * 
remember one day, when Tom Davies was telling that Dr. Johnson said,—' We ai 
all in labour for a name to Goldfs plav,' Goldsmith seemed displeased that such 
liberty should be taken with his name, and said, ' I have often desired him not i 
call me Goldy.^ " r u • i. u- 

This is one of several of Boswell's depreciatory mentions of Goldsmith— whu 
may well irritate biographers and admirers— and also those who take that more kind 
and more profound view of Boswell's own character, which was opened up by M 
Carlyle's famous article on his book. No wonder that Mr. Ipipg calls Boswell s 
"incarnation of toadyism." And the worst of it is, that Johnson himself h; 
suffered from this habit of the Laird of Auchinleck's. People are apt to forget und 
what Boswellian stimulus the great Doctor uttered many hasty things :— things i 
more indicative of the nature of the depths of his character than the phosphoi 
gleaming of the sea, when struck at night, is indicative of radical corruption of natur 
In truth, it is clear enough on the whole that both Johnson and Goldsmith «//> 
dated each other, and that they mutually knew it. They were— as it were, tripp 
up and flung against each other, occasionally, by the blundering and silly gamboUH 
of people in company. , 

Something must be allowed for Boswell's " rivalry for Johnson's good grace* 
with Oliver (as Sir Walter Scott has remarked), for Oliver was intimate with* 
Doctor before his biographer was,— and, as we all remember, marched off with h 
to " take tea with Mrs. Williams " before Boswell had advanced to that honoral. 
degree of intimacy. But, in truth, Boswell— though he perhaps showed more tale 
in his delineation of the Doctor than is generally ascribed to him— had not facu.; 
to take a fair view of two-%xt2X men at a time. Besides, as Mr. Forster jus' 
remarks, " he was impatient of Goldsmith from the first hour of their acquaintancJ! 
— Life and Adventures^ p. 292, , ; 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH, 547 

many a pleasant holiday. He bought his finest clothes to 
figure at their country house at Barton — he wrote them droll 
verses. They loved him, laughed at him, played him tricks 
and made him happy. He asked for a loan from Garrick, and 
Garrick kindly supplied him, to enable him to go to Barton : 
but there were to be no more holidays, and only one brief 
struggle more for poor Goldsmith. A lock of his hair was 
taken from the cofiin and given to the Jessamy Bride. She 
lived quite into our time. Hazlitt saw her an old lady, but 
beautiful still, in Northcote's painting-room, who told the eager 
critic how proud she always was that Goldsmith had admired 
her. The younger Colman has left a touching reminiscence of 
him. Vol. i. 63, 64. 

" I was only five years old," he says, " when Goldsmith 
took me on his knee one evening whilst he was drinking coffee 
with my father, and began to play with me, which amiable act 
I returned, with the ingratitude of a peevish brat, by giving him 
a very smart slap- on the face : it must have been a tingler, for 
it left the marks of my spiteful paw on his cheek. This infan- 
tile outrage was followed by summary justice, and I was locked 
up by my indignant father in an adjoining room to undergo 
solitary imprisonment in the dark. Here I began to howl and 
scream most abominably, which was no bad step towards my 
liberation, since those who were not inclined to pity me might 
be likely to set me free for the purpose of abating a nuisance. 

" At length a generous friend appeared to extricate me 
from jeopardy, and that generous friend was no other than the 
man I had so wantonly molested by assault and battery — it was 
the tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his 
hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still par- 
tially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and 
sobbed as he fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. 
Goldsmith seized the propitious moment of returning good-hu- 
mor, when he put down the candle and began to conjure. He 
placed three hats, which happened to be in the room, and a 
shilling under each. The shillings he told me were England, 
France, and Spain. ' Hey presto cockalorum ! ' cried the 
Doctor, and lo, on uncovering the shillings, which had been 
dispersed each beneath a separate hat, they were all found con- 
gregated under one. I was no politician at five years old, and 
therefore might not have wondered at the sudden revolution 
which brought England, France, and Spain all under one 
crown j but, as also I was no conjuror, it amazed me beyond 
measure. =h= ^ # * * From that time, whenever the Doctor 



248 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

came to visit my father, ' I plucked his gown to share the good 
man's smile ; ' a game at romps constantly ensued, and we were 
always cordial friends and merry playfellows. Our unequal 
companionship varied somewhat as to sports as I grew older ; 
but it did not last long : my senior playmate died in his forty- 
fifth year, when I had attained my eleventh. * * * In all 
the numerous accounts of his virtues and foibles, his genius 
and absurdities, his knowledge of nature and ignorance of the 
world, his '.compassion for another's woe' was always pre- 
dominant ; and my trivial story of his humoring a froward 
child weighs but as a feather in the recorded scale of his be- 
nevolence. 

Think of him reckless, thriftless, vain if you like — but mer- 
ciful, gentle, generous, full of love and pity. He passes out of 
our life, and goes to render his account beyond it. Think of 
the poor pensioners weeping at his grave ; think of the noble 
spirits that admired and deplored him ; think of the righteous 
pen that wrote his epitaph — and of the wonderful and unani- 
mous response of affection with which the world has paid back 
the love he gave it. His humor delighting us still : his song 
fresh and beautiful as when first he charmed with it : his words 
in all our mouths, his very weaknesses beloved and familiar — his 
benevolent spirit seems still to smile upon us : to do gentle 
kindnesses : to succor with sweet charity : to soothe, caress, 
and forgive : to plead with the fortunate for the unhappy and 
the poor. 

His name is the last in the list of those men of humor who 
have formed the themes of the discourses which you have heard 
so kindly. 

Long before I had ever hoped for such an audience, or 
dreamed of the possibility of the good-fortune which has brought 
me so many friends, I was at issue with some of my literary 
brethren upon a point — which they held from tradition I think 
rather than experience — that our profession was neglected in 
this country ; and that men of letters were ill-received and held 
in slight esteem. It would hardly be grateful of me now to 
alter my old opinion that we do meet with good-will and kind- 
ness, with generous helping hands in the time of our necessity, 
with cordial and friendly recognition. What claim had any one 
of these of whom I have been speaking, but genius ? What re- 
turn of gratitude, fame, affection, did it not bring to all ? 

What punishment befell those who were unfortunate 
among them, but that which follows reckless habits and careless 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH. 



S49 



lives ? For these faults a wit must sufter like the dullest prodi- 
gal that ever ran in debt. He must pay the tailor if he wears 
the coat ; his children must go in rags if he spends his money 
at the tavern ; he can't come to London and be made Lord 
Chancellor if he stops on the road and gambles away his last 
shilling at Dublin. And he must pay the social penalty of 
tliese follies too, and expect that the world will shun the man of 
';ad habits, that women will avoid the man of loose life, that 
prudent folks will close their doors as a precaution, and before 
a demand should be made on their pockets by the needy prodi- 
gal. With what difficulty had any one .of these men to con- 
tend, save that eternal and mechanical one of want of means 
and lack of capital, and of which thousands of young lawyers, 
young doctors, young soldiers and sailors, of inventors, manu- 
facturers, shopkeepers, have to complain ? Hearts as brave 
and resolute as ever beat in the breast of any wit or poet, sicken 
and break daily in the vain endeavor and unavailing struggle 
against life's difficulty. Don't we see daily ruined inventors, 
gray-haired midshipmen, baulked heroes, blighted curates, bar- 
risters pining a hungry life out in chambers, the attorneys never 
mounting to their garrets, whilst scores of them are rapping at 
the door of the successful quack below ? If these suffer, who 
is the author, that he should be exempt ? Let us bear our ills 
with the same constancy with which others endure them, accept 
our manly part in life, hold our own, and ask no more. I can 
conceive of no kings or laws causing or curing Goldsmith's im- 
providence, or Fielding's fatal love of pleasure, or Dick Steele's 
mania for running races with the constable. You never can 
outrun that sure-footed officer — not by any swiftness or by 
dodges devised by any genius, however great ; and he carries 
off the Tatler to the sponging-house, or taps the Citizen of the 
World on the shoulder as he would any other mortal. 

Does society look down on a man because he is an author ? 
I suppose if people want a buffoon they tolerate him only in so 
far as he is amusing ; it can hardly be expected that they should 
respect him as an equal. Is there to be a guard of honor pro- 
vided for the author of the last new novel or poem ? how long is 
he to reign, and keep other potentates out of possession ? He re- 
tires, grumbles, and prints a lamentation that literature is de- 
spised. If Captain A. is left out of Lady B.'s parties he does 
not state that the army is despised : if Lord C. no longer asks 
Councellor D. to dinner. Counsellor D. does not announce that 
the bar is insulted. He is not fair to society if he enters it 
with this suspicion hankering about him ; if he is doubtful 



^ro ENGLISH HUMORISTS. 

abbut his reception, how hold up his head honestly, and look 
frankly in the face that world about which he is full of suspi- 
cion ? Is he place-hunting, and thinking in his mind that he 
ought to be made an Ambassador, like Prior, or a Secretary 
of State, like Addison ? his pretence of equality falls to the 
ground at once : he is scheming for a patron, not shaking the 
hand of a friend, when he meets the world. Treat such a man 
as he deserves ; laugh at his buffoonery, and give him a dinner 
and a bojijour ; laugh at his self-sufficiency and absurd assump- 
tions of superiority, and his equally ludicrous airs of martyrdom : 
laugh at his flattery and his scheming, and buy it, if it's worth ! 
the having. Let the wag have his dinner and the hireling his 
pay, if you want him, and make a profound bow to the grand ' 
homme incompris, and the boisterous martyr, and show him the 
door. The great world, the great aggregate experience, has 
its good sense, as it has its good-humor. It detects a pretender, 
as it trusts a loyal heart. It is kind in the main : how should 
it be otherwise than kind, when it is so wise and clear-headed "i 
To any literary man who says, " It despises my profession," I 
say, with all my might — no, no, no. It may pass over your 
individual case — how many a brave fellow has failed in the race 
and perished unknown in the struggle ! — but it treats you as 
you merit in the main. If you serve it, it is not unthankful ; if 
you please, it is pleased ; if you cringe to it, it detects you, and 
scorns you if you are mean ; it returns your cheerfulness with \ 
its good-humor; it deals not ungenerously with your weakness ;i 
it recognizes most kindly your merits ; it gives you a fair place \ 
and fair play. To any one of those men of whom we have 
spoken was it in the main ungrateful .? A king might refuse 
Goldsmith a pension, as a publisher might keep his master- 
piece and the delight of all the world in his desk for two 
years ; but it was mistake, and not ill-will. Noble and 
illustrious names of Swift, and Pope, and Addison ! dear and 
honored memory of Goldsmith and Fielding! kind friends, 
teachers, benefactors ! who shall say that our country, which 
continues to bring such an unceasing tribute of applause, admi- 
ration, love, sympathy, does not do honor to the literary calling 
in the honor which it bestows upon you I 



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of 'Phyllis, has given us a collection of them, and one or two are especially 

of stories which cannot f ailto be por-- I raoy ?iTid p iquant. "— The Academy. 

NO NEW THING. By W. E. Norris, Author of "Matri- 
mony," "Mademoiselle de Mersac," etc. 1 vol.. 12mo., cloth- 
gilt, $1.00; also in Lovell's Library, No. 108,20 cents 



"Mr. Norris has succeeded. His 
story, 'No New Thing,' is a very curi 
ous one — There is unmistakable 
capacity in his y^ox^.''— Spectator. 



' 'No New Thing' is bright, readable 
and clever, and in every f^enne of the 
word a thoroughly interesting book." 

Whitehall Jieciew. 



ARDEN. By A. Mary F. Robinson, 1 vul., 12rao., in Lovell's 
Library, No. 134, 15 cents. 



' "Miss Robinson must certainly be 
congratulated on having scored a suc- 
c-'ss at the very beginning of her ca- 
reer. 'Arden' is an extremely clever 



acter. Brought np in Rome, on the 
death of her fat her, Arden retnrn.s to 
his native village in Warwickshire, 
there to make acquaintance with the 



story, and though it is one merely of [ truest and freshest country people we 



every-day life, yet the incidents are so 
clothed as to appear fresh and new, 
and the scent of the hay thftiughout 
is invigorating and refreshing. The 
heroine, who gives her name to the 
book, is a wild, impulsive creature 
whom one cannot help liking, in spite 
of various weaknesses in her char- 



have ever met on paper. The story 
is simply that of Arden s life and 
marriage, but it is never wearisome 
because of the sharpness of the writ- 
ing, and we have to thank Miss Robin- 
son for a very good novel indeed "— 
Whitehall Review. 



New York: JOHN W. I.OVEI.I. COMPANY. 



LOVELL S LlBllARY ADVERTISER . ♦] 

KECENTLY PUBLISHED: 

UNDERGROUND RUSSIA:] 

Revolutionary Profiles and Sketches from Life. 
By STEPNIAK, formerly Editor of " Zemlia i Volia " (Land and 
Liberty). With a Preface by PETER LAVROFF. Translated 
from the Itahan. 1 vol. 12mo., paper coyer, Loveli's Library, 
No. 173 price 20 cents. 

"The book is as yet unique in literature; is a priceless contribation to 
our knowledge of Russian thought and feeling', as a trt:; and fafttiful reflection 
of certain aspects of, perhaps, the most tremendous politicial inovem/»nt in J 
history, it seems destined to become a standard work "— Athbn^um. \ 



An Outline of the History of Ireland, 

Prom the Earliest Times to the present day. 
By JUSTIN H. McCARTHY. 1 vol. 12mo., LovelPs Library 
. No. 115, price 10 cents. 

* A timely and exceedingly vigorous and interesting little volume. The book 
is worthy of attentive perusal, and will be all the move interesting because It 
involves in its production the warm sympathies, the passionate enthusiasm, and 
the vivid brilliancy of style which one is glad to welcome Jrom the son cf the 
distinguished journalist and author —Christian World. 

"All Irishmen who love their country, and all candid Englishmen, ought to 
welcome Mr Justin H. McCarthy's iitile volume— 'An Oulline of Irish History.' 
Those who want to know how it has come about that, as John Stuart K ill long 
ago pointed out, all cries for the remedy of specific Irish friovances are now 
merged in the dangerous demand for nationality, win do well to read Mr. 
McCarthy 8 I'ttle book. It is eloquently written, and carries us from the earliest 
legends to the autumn of 1882. The charm of the style and the impetuousness 
in the flow of the narrative are refreshing and stimulating, and, as regards his- 
toric impartiality. Mr McCarthy is far more just than ia Mr.Proude."— Graphic. 

"A brightly written and intelligent account of the leading events in Irish 

annals Mr. McCarthy has performed a diflacult task with commendable 

good spirit and impartiality.' —Whitehall Review. 

'To those who enjoy exceptionally brilliant and vigorous writing, as well 
as to those who desire to post themselves up in the Irish question, we cordially 
recommend Mr. McCarthy a little book."— Evening News. 



ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. 

Edited -by JOHN MORLEY. 
Published in 12mo. vols., paper covers, price 10 cents each. 

Thackeray By A. TroUope. 



Johnson. By Leslie Stephen 
Scott. By R. H. Hntton. 
Gibbon. By J C. Morison. 
Shelley. By J. A Symonda. 
HcTME. By Prof. Huxley. P.R.S. 
Goldsmith By William Black. 
Depoe. By W. Minto. 
Burns. By Principal Shairp 
Spenser. By the Very Rev. the Dean 
of St. Paul's. 



Burke By John Morley. 
BuNYAN. By J. A. Froude. 
Pope. By Leslie Stephen. 
Byron. By Professor Nichol. 
Cowper. By Goldwin Smith. 
Locke By Professor Fowler. 
WORDSWORTH. ByF.W H Myers. 
Milton, By Mark Pattison. 
SouTHEY. By Professor Dowden. 
Chaucer. By Prof. A. W Ward. 



New York : JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY. 



LOVBLL'S LIBRAR Y ADVERTISER. 

VICE VERSA; 

Or, A LESSON TO FATHERS. 
By F. ANSTEY. 

1 vol., 12mo., cloth gilt, $1.00- 1 vol., 13mo., paper, 50 cents; also in Loveirs 
Library, No. 30, 20 cents. 

EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES BY THE PRESS. 

THE SATURDAY EEVIEW.— " If there ever was a book made up from 
beginning to end of laughter, yet not a comic book, or a 'merry' book, or a 
book of jokes, or a book of pictures, or a jest book, or a tomfool book, but a 

f)erfectly sober and serious book, in the reading of which a sober man may 
augh without shame from beginning to end, it is the book called ' Vice 
Versa; or. a Lesson to Fathers.' . .We close the book, recommending it 
very earnestly to all fathers, in the first instance, and their sons, nephews, 
uncles, and male cousins next." 

THE PALL MALL GAZETTE.—'* 'Vice Versa is one of the most 
diverting books that we have read for many a day. It is equally calculated to 
amuse the August idler, and to keep up the spirits of those who stay in town 

and work, whUe others are holiday- making The book is singularly well 

written, graphic, terse, and full of nerve. The school-boy conversations are 
to the life, and every scene is brisk and well considered." 

THE ATHEN.EUM.— " The whole story is told with delightful drollery 
and spirit, and there is not a dull page in the volume. It should be added that 
Mr.Anstey writes well, and in a style admirably suited to his amusing subject. • 

THE SPECTATOR.—" Mr. Anstey deserves the thanks of everybody for 

showing that there is still a little fun left in this world It is long e.nce we 

read anything more truly humorous .. . . We must admit that we have not 
laughed so heartily over anything for some years back as we have over this 
' Lesson for Fathers.* " 

THE ACADEMY,—'* It is certainly the best book of its kind that has ap- 
peared for a long time, and in the way of provoking laughter by certain old- 
fashioned means, which do not involve satire or sarcasm, it has few rivals." 

THE WORLD.—" The idea of a father and son exchanging their identity 
has suggested itself to many minds before now. It is illuftrated in this book 

with surprising freshness, originality and force The book is more thau 

wildly comic and amusing; it is in parts exceedingly pathetic " 

THE CODHT JOUkmALi.—" The story is told with so much wit and 
gayety that we cannot be deceived in our impression of the future career of F. 
Anstey being destined to attain the greatest success among the most popular 
authors of the day." 

VANITY FAlrv — '• The book is, in our opinion, the drollest work ever 
written in the English language." 

TRUTH.—" Mr. Anstey has done an exceedingly difficult thing so admira- 
bly and artfully as to conceal its difficulties. Haven't for years read so irresist- 
ibly bomorous a book." 

• NEW YORK: 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., 14 and 16 Vegey Street. 



Laughter Literature 

12mo, price, in paper, 50 cents, in cloth, $1.00. 



THE SPOOPENDYKE PAPERS, by Stanley Huntley, of 
the Brooklyn Eagle, 
A book of domestic scenes, between a nervous, petulent husband 
and a patient, unsophisticated wife. The irritable Spoopendyke 
and his meek spouse are most amusing creations. 

PIKE COUNTY FOLKS, by E. H. Mott, of the N. Y. Sun, 
illustrafed by F. Opper, of Fuck. 
Truthful Talks in uncontrollable language— irresistibly funny. 

JETS AND FLASHES, by Henry Clay Lukens (Erratic En- 
rique), the •' New York News' Man," illustrated by Rene Bache. 
"A more acceptable or timely work by a native manufacturer of 
broad grins can hardly be found." — N. V. Star. 

FAMOUS FUNNY FELLOWS, by Will M. Clemens, illustrated 
with portraits of notable humorists. 
Brief biographical sketches of American humorists, with extracte 
from their funniest inspirations. 

GRANDFATHER LICKSHINGLE, AND OTHER 

SKETCHES, by R. W.Criswell, of the Cincinnati Enquirer, 
profusely illustrated. 
A quaint literary creation. 

WIDOW BEDOTT PAPERS, by Mrs. Frances M. Whitcher, 
originally contributed to Neal's Saturday Gazette. 

THE CHOICE WORKS OF THOMAS HOOD, in Prose 
and Verse, including the cream of the Comic Annuals, with 200 
illustrations. 

MRS. CAUDLE'S CURTAIN LECTURES, by Douglas 
Jerrold, editor of Punch. 
Mrs. Margaret Caudle's inimitable night lectures, delivered during 
a period of thirty years, to her sulky husband. Job Caudle. 



New York? JOHN \r. liOVECIi CO., 14 & 16 Vesey Ste 



LOVELL'S LIBRARY -CATALOGUE. 



116. 
117. 

118. 

no. 

120 
121. 
122. 

r.'t. 

•[25. 
1;]0. 

127. 

128. 
129. 

1?;0. 

131. 

nt. 



■■■i. 
1:5:3. 

13G. 

ri7. 

188. 
189. 

TO. 

■ 't. 



147. 
148, 



154. 

15tJ 



Morp Words About the Bibl^, 

Ja8. S. Bush ....v.... 20 

J^ecoq, Gaboriao l»t, I. 20 
Lecoq,-,ft. I: r..* ....... 20 

Au U u lI i ae o f I risS .History, by . 
Justin H. McCarthy:, . :........: 10 

The Lero uge Casse^' bj!©abOt'iaii 20 
Paul Clifford, hre.Xrtifct: Lytton. . .20. 
A Now Lease of tijlf;^; hj About. . 20 
Bourbon Li lies . . ; ; •: ;.. , ; . . . ; .... 20; 

Other People 8 MoneyiGaborianiiO 
The Lady of Lyoha.yLylton. . .10 
AmtMiue dc B-i'nrg. . .•.•*.;; ,...-.,.;.. J5 
A ScaQ.ne^iTi, by W. Susselt.'. ..20 
TI10 L'lilies Lihdorea.-by; -Mrs. 

Ulinhant ..20.. 

Haunt, d Hearts, by Simpson :.. 10 
L')v«. ' ord Bere^ford, by The 

Dnche83 .20 

Under Two Plaojs, Ouida, Pt. I. 15 i 

U;<der Two Flag.-=, Pt. II IT. 1 

>fon! s' nv ry>rd l,ytton 10 ! 

In ^ Mfe,byGaboriau.c'0 I 

Ji, Muller 20 i 

Je, "3. :._ 20 

Mooushin.; and Marguerite', hy 

The Dnchees 10 

Mr.,Scarborongh'« Tr" ■.- by 

Anthony Troiiopu. P' J . . J.'i 
Mr Sc,irborou2:h^8r;'f.i.y. PtII lb 
Arden, by A. Mary F i{obinf?on.ir, 

The Tower of Perccmortt 20 

Yolande, by Wm. Black 20 

Cruel London by Jos(q>h Batton.20 
The Gilded CPqne. by (iaboriau.SO 
PiXe Tonnty Foik-^, E H. Mott. .20 

Cricket on the Hcrth 10 

Henry Esmond, by 'i hackeray. .20 
Strange Adventures of a Phae- 

tor:, ]\y Wm. Black 20 

Mival, by Thackeray 10 

■dty ■'hop,Dickt-n3,PtI.l,'> 
..3!tv Shop, P.^rtll... .15 

- by >cott, Part 1 15 

by Scott, Pai't II 1.5 

*'ing8. by Win. Bl8.clr..v)0 
Thi; Sketch Book, by Irving . "^^O 
Catherine, by W. M Thackeray.lO 

i.'sn.'.'V' /'i'po'-s^ance by Fl'ot lu 

'P. Dickens, Pt I.. 15 

e, P.irtll 15 

George EKiot 20 

iCichclicu, by Lord Lvtton 10 

Sunrise, by Wm. Hlack, Part I . . 15 
bnnrii^e, by Wm. Black. Part 11.15 
Tour of the World in 80 Days. .20 

Myaterv of Orcival. Gaboriau 20 

Love! , the Widower, by W. M. 

ray 10 

c Adventures of aJIilk- 

- t-y Tb'-mas Hardv 10 

David Coppei field, Dickens, Pt 1.30 

David Copj'erfield, Part II 20 

Pienzi, by Lor.l Lytton, Parti. 15 

ton. Part II. 15 

', Gaboriau.. 10 

h, by The 

DacUe^is ..20 



200. 



208. 



The Happy Man, by Lover... 10 

Barry Lyndon, by Thackeray. . .20 

Eyre's Acquittal ..10 

Twenty Thoueand Leagues Un- 
der the Sea, 1^ Jules Verne 20 

Anti-Slavery Days, by James 

Freeman Clarke; 20 

Bt;auty's Daughters, by The 

Duchess 20 

Beyond the Sunrise 20 

Hard Times, by Charles Dickens. 20 
Tom Cringle's Log, by M.Scott.. 20 
Vanity Fair, by W.M.Thackeray. 20 
Underground Russia, Stepniak..20 
Middlemarch, by Elliot, Pt I.... 20 

iM iddlemarch. Part II SO 

Sir Tom, by Mrt^. OUphant 20 

Pelham, by Lord Lytton 20 

The Story of Ida 10 

Madcap Violet, by Wm. BJack. .20 

The Little Pilgrim 10 

Kilmeny, by Wm. Black 20 

Whist, or Bumblepuppy? 10 

The Beautiful Wretch, Black. ...20 
Her Mother's Sin, by B. M. Clay.20 
Green Pastures and Piccadilly, 

by Wm. Black 20 . 

Tlie Mysterious Island, by Jules 

Verne, Part 1 15 

The Mysterious Island. Part II. . 15 
The Mysterious Island, Part III. 15 
Torn Brawn at Oxford. Part I. . .15 
Tom Brown at Oxford, Part II. . 15 
Thicker than Water, by J. Payn.20 
. In Silk Attire, by Wra. Black. . .20 
. Scottish Chiefs.Jane Porter,Pt.I.20 

Sc6tti^ h Oh.of s, Part II 20 

. Willv ReiUy, by Will Carieton..20 
, Tlie"Niuitz Family, by Shelley.20 
, Great Expectations, by Dicken8.20 
, r-'ndenni8,by Thackeray, Part 1.20 
I endenni8,by Thackeray ,Part 11.20 

Widow Bedott Papers . . '. 20 

Daniel Deronda.Geo. Eliot,Pt. 1.20 

Daniel Derouda, Part II 20 

, AltioraPeto, by Qiiphant 20 

. By the Gate of the Sea, by David 

Christie Murray 15 

Tales of a Traveller, by Irving ..20 
, Life and Voyages of Columbus, 
by Washington Irving, Part I. .20 
LiL and Voyages of Columbus, 
by Washington Irving, Part 11.20 

, The Filgrim^s Progress 20 

. Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles 

Dickens, Part I • 20 

Martin Chuzzlewit, Part II 20 

. Theophrastus Such. Geo. Eliot. . .20 
, Disarmed, M. Betham-Edvvard8..15 
. Eugene Aram, by Lord Lytton. 20 
. The (Spanish Gypsy and Other* 

Poems, by George Eliot 30 

. Cast Up by th e Sea. Baker 20 

. Mill on the Floss, Eliot, Pt. I. ,.16 
Mil Ion the Floss, Part II........ « 

Brother Jacob, and Mr. GilflPs 

Love Story, by George Eliot. . ,10 
Wrecks in the Sea of Life %9 



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